The Great Escape

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘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.

  In the bedroom, Lou inspects the bed. While Spike’s side has clearly been slept in, hers looks undisturbed. He could have arranged it that way, of course, but anyway, she’s past caring now and, as Sadie pointed out, she’s had a lucky escape. Just a pity it didn’t happen thirteen years earlier when Lou had watched him making cow-eyes at that woman with the hair like a loaf. While Lou is hardly in a celebratory mood, her fury is beginning to ebb away and she feels momentarily calm. She replays the scene as the train pulled into York station just an hour ago, when Hannah and Sadie had hugged her goodbye, asking over and over if she wanted one or both of them to come to the flat with her. It wouldn’t be a problem, they said; they could stay over and make their way south tomorrow. Barney could take an extra day off and Hannah’s boss would understand. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she’d said firmly, and now, as she wanders into the bedroom and opens the wardrobe, Lou knows it’s true.

  She carries the chair from beneath the small window, places it in front of the wardrobe and clambers onto it so she can reach the top shelf. With difficulty, because so much junk is jammed in all around it, she pulls out the huge, heavy box containing her jewellery materials, gripping it tightly as she steps back onto the floor. Lou carries it through to the kitchen. From the box she takes out her sketchpad filled with jewellery designs, and the ultra-sharp hard-leaded pencils she likes to work with, and starts to draw.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  ‘I shouldn’t have read it,’ Ryan says softly, pulling Hannah towards him in bed. ‘I should have respected your privacy and I’m sorry.’

  Hannah studies his face on the pillow and traces her fingers down his arm. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have written it. It’s one of those things you do in the heat of the moment without thinking …’

  ‘Couldn’t you have told me?’

  ‘About the cigarettes?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘No, not that … God, that seems like nothing now. Just a few puffs …’ He laughs softly. ‘By his age, I was already making cocktails from whatever my parents had in their drinks cabinet. No, I mean the other stuff, about the way the kids are with you.’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to. I thought you could see it happening every day.’

  ‘Maybe I could,’ Ryan says, dropping his voice to a whisper as Josh’s bedroom door opens and he plods to the bathroom. ‘But I pretended everything was okay. Maybe …’ He pauses, as if unsure whether to go on. ‘Maybe that’s what I did with Petra too, telling myself we were fine …’

  Hannah’s fingers come to a halt on Ryan’s skin. ‘Daisy said you had a picnic on the Heath yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he murmurs.

  ‘How was that?’ Hannah asks lightly as the loo flushes and Josh makes his way back to his room.

  ‘It was … weird. She actually suggested that maybe me and her could try again,’ he says quickly.

  ‘What? You’re kidding!’ Hannah’s forgotten about the unspoken nocturnal whispering rule.

  Ryan shakes his head. ‘I don’t think she meant it, not really. It’s probably just the wedding, the thought of me getting married again …’

  ‘God, Ryan,’ Hannah mutters. ‘That’s unbelievable.’

  He pulls her closer, kissing her lips. ‘Honestly, I don’t think she really wants to. It’s just … her life isn’t turning out the way she’d imagined. Petra’s put her music before everything else – she admitted that – and I guess if she hadn’t, she’d still be giving cello lessons to reluctant kids.’

  ‘Daisy and Josh are lucky, though,’ Hannah ventures. ‘At least you’ve always made them the centre of everything.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that. Yesterday, I suggested to Petra that maybe they should live with her.’

  ‘They can’t do that!’ Hannah exclaims.
<
br />   ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you don’t want that, do you?’

  ‘Not really but—’

  ‘What kind of life would they have? Oh, I know there’d be plenty of exhibitions and museums and mime shows …’

  ‘But what you said in that email, you’re right – this is your home too, and it’s not fair …’

  ‘You’d do that for me?’ she asks incredulously.

  ‘Well, yes – for us.’

  ‘But this is their home, Ryan. It’s where they’ve lived all their lives, their friends are nearby, their schools … what did Petra say?’

  Ryan turns to look at her, finding her hand beneath the duvet. ‘She didn’t look overjoyed, I have to say.’

  ‘All the more reason not to then,’ Hannah declares. ‘You haven’t mentioned this to them, have you?’

  ‘No, I thought we should talk about it first.’

  ‘Please don’t, Ryan. They’d think it was because of me, that I don’t want them here – and I do. All this time, I’ve been thinking I’ll try this, I’ll do that, trying to make them like me …’ She shrugs. ‘Maybe I just can’t. And maybe it’d be better if I didn’t keep trying, if I was just myself…’

  Ryan slides his arms around her back and pulls her towards him. ‘Are you sure,’ he says gently, ‘that this is what you want? Me and my kids and our terrible ice-spitting fridge?’

  She looks at Ryan and leans in to kiss him. ‘I think,’ she whispers into his ear, ‘I could actually grow to love that fridge.’

  It’s gone midnight by the time Sadie and Barney have settled the babies to sleep, although Barney suspects that Sadie wanted to keep them awake, to cuddle and kiss them as if she’d been away on a six-month trip and not one meagre weekend. He’s been desperate to show her her gift, the way he used to be during their first few Christmases together when each of them would go to extravagant lengths to source quirky, personalised presents. Last Christmas, to his shame, he’d suggested they skip presents, what with having moved house only a few months previously and, anyway, wasn’t this house their present to each other? He tried to make up for it today, taking the boys and Sadie’s bike to the mountain-biking centre where, with the help of a couple of enthusiastic teenage boys and a whole heap of components, he’d managed to restore it to its former glory.

  ‘My God, it’s perfect,’ Sadie exclaims, gripping his hand as they stand in the back garden. ‘It must’ve taken you all weekend! How did you manage it with the boys around?’

  ‘Ah well,’ he says, ‘you’re always saying men are no good at multitasking. But the truth is, I don’t know what you do all day …’ She tries to swipe him, laughing, and he catches her in a big hug. ‘Let’s go in,’ he murmurs. ‘It’s freezing out here. I’ll bring in your bike – I only put it out there so you wouldn’t see it …’

  As he wheels it into the hall, she’s tempted to check on the babies again, the way she usually does every twenty minutes or so. But no – they’ll be fine. She really doesn’t need to keep creeping into their bedroom throughout the evening. Sadie hasn’t asked Barney whether he used nappy rash cream either, or grilled him on what the boys had for every meal while she was away. She hasn’t even commented on the grubby bib poking out from under the cooker, or on the faint poo smell that’s lingering in the air. No, she’s stopped all that. She’s trying, anyway. Trying to loosen the reins.

  Later, as she’s about to sit beside him on the sofa, she notices a dark stain on the armchair. Although she manages not to ask what happened, Barney catches her studying it. ‘Just a bit of spilt milk,’ he says quickly.

  Sadie smiles. ‘Well, if that’s the worst thing that happened while you were in charge …’ She doesn’t finish, because her husband is pulling her towards him and kissing her full on the lips.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  After work on Monday Hannah cycles straight home, then drives over to Felix’s place. She’s pleasantly surprised that Josh and Daisy agreed to come with her. Perhaps it’s because she didn’t appear as if she desperately wanted them to, but just presented it as something they might like to do.

  ‘This is so posh,’ Josh marvels as she lets them into the third-floor flat. ‘Is he rich?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, laughing. ‘It’s lovely, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Daisy murmurs beside her. Together they wander from room to room. It feels still and calm and is pleasingly white – pure white, with no scuffs on the walls from kids casually brushing against them. There’s no faint air of chaos, no crucial school trip forms lying scrunched up on worktops or laundry half-pulled out of the tumble dryer in an unwieldy clump. Felix’s flat is clearly the home of a single person who employs a cleaner to dust the wafer-thin TV before hoovering the cream Heal’s rug.

  They step into a kitchen which feels as if no food has ever been prepared in it. There’s a small chrome rack of spices, seemingly unused, and apart from the gleaming cone-shaped kettle, the wooden worktops are bare. ‘There’s no … stuff here,’ Daisy remarks. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d love to live somewhere like this,’ Josh enthuses.

  ‘Me too,’ Hannah says, realising it’s the kind of place she used to fantasise about – didn’t she and Lou once spend an entire evening in Garnet Street describing their perfect future lives? Lou’s had been all about gin and tonics on the roof terrace – she hadn’t even liked gin and tonic then, but had been confident that it was something she’d be able to train herself to enjoy. Hannah’s future life had been different. She’d have a flat a little like this one – tons of light, no clutter, every item chosen with care. But now, she decides there’s something soulless about it. It’s almost too perfect. ‘This is the wall Felix wants me to paint,’ she explains, bringing them back to the living room. ‘What d’you think I should do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Josh mutters as Daisy wanders away to continue her explorations. ‘Aren’t you scared of messing it up?’

  ‘Well, if Felix doesn’t like it, he can always paint over it …’

  ‘I mean, aren’t you nervous?’ he says, frowning.

  Hannah smiles. ‘No, I’m really not. I know what you mean, though – it’s a big responsibility. But I’m just going to go with what feels right … for instance, I know it’s going to be abstract, and I think I know the kind of colours I’m going to use …’ Josh mumbles something into the baggy neck of his murky green T-shirt.

  ‘Sorry, Josh? I didn’t hear—’

  ‘I said thanks for not telling Dad about the cigarettes. I know he read the email … you’d already found them and decided not to tell on me, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Er … yes,’ Hannah says hesitantly. ‘I didn’t really think it was my place, Josh—’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ he grunts.

  ‘Er, that’s okay …’

  ‘Are you going to live here, Hannah?’ Daisy demands, having reappeared in the living room doorway.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she exclaims. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You just said it’s your place. I heard you …’

  Hannah steps towards her and, without considering whether it’s okay or not, takes Daisy by the hand. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she says gently. ‘Me and Josh were talking about something else. This is Felix’s place, and I’m going to come here some nights after work, and maybe most of next weekend – you can come too, if you like. You’re good with colour, you have a real eye for it and maybe you can help me.’

  ‘Okay,’ Daisy says warily.

  ‘But I’m not moving here,’ Hannah adds firmly. ‘Me and your dad are getting married in twelve days’ time, sweetheart. We’re going to be together, in your house, if that’s okay with—’

  ‘’Cause Dad gets lonely when you’re not there,’ Daisy cuts in, impervious to Josh’s glare.

  ‘Does he?’ Hannah asks, frowning. ‘I thought you all had a nice time when I was away, with the picnic and everything.’

  ‘Mum
and Dad were talking about us,’ Daisy mutters.

  ‘Shut up, Daisy,’ Josh growls, throwing her a furious look.

  ‘They were!’ she counters, eyes flashing as she whirls round to face him. ‘You heard them when we were sitting by the pond. Dad wants us to go and live with Mum and go to new schools where we won’t know anybody and not even have our own bedrooms and I’d have to share with—’

  ‘Daisy, he doesn’t—’ Hannah touches her arm, but she backs away.

  ‘He does! I heard him, and Mum doesn’t want us, so where are we going to live?’

  ‘Please, Daisy!’ Hannah exclaims, putting her arms around her and studying her tear-stained face. ‘He doesn’t want you to live with your mum. He wants everything to stay just the way it is, okay? He just mentioned it because he thought maybe you haven’t been that … happy lately. Maybe it’s been weird for you with me around.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Daisy chokes out. ‘It’s good and I like it. I don’t want everything to change again.’

  ‘I … I promise it won’t,’ Hannah stammers as Daisy looks up at her, teary-eyed. ‘Listen – why don’t we start thinking about this mural tonight? I’ll sketch out the window and the proportions of the room, and when we go home we could have a play around with some colour up in my studio. What d’you think?’

  ‘All right,’ Daisy murmurs, biting her bottom lip.

  ‘I’ve got some ideas,’ Josh says hesitantly.

  ‘No you haven’t,’ Daisy scoffs. ‘You’re no good at drawing, you don’t have any ideas about—’

  ‘Hey, you two,’ Hannah cuts in, realising she’s slipped into using Ryan’s conciliatory tone, the one reserved for squabbles at breakfast over who gets the last of the orange juice. ‘The more ideas we have, the better. My plan is to sketch out some options and text them to Felix.’