He lived on Chelsea Road, in Chelmsford. He hadn’t told her the number but he’d told her the street when she’d asked him. Escorts didn’t usually give out their addresses, she was sure, but he’d told her. He was different. She was different.
She’d go to his street and look for his car.
To get to Chelsea Road, Grace had to drive through the centre of town. She made steady progress – traffic wasn’t too bad on a Sunday. Turning right at the roundabout by the university, she passed the Pacific Hotel. Greg’s car was quite distinctive: an electric blue Beetle. He’d dropped her to the end of her road in it, after the roller-skating. It was there, in the hotel car park. She was sure it was. She had no choice but to swiftly put on her indicator and turn at lightning speed into the car park. A car beeped behind her angrily; she’d braked quite suddenly.
She parked two rows behind Greg’s car and instinctively – feeling like a ridiculous rookie cop on a stake-out – ducked and peered up through the windscreen. She could see the doors to the hotel lobby.
An older couple with matching rucksacks came through them. Then a giggly group of young women wheeling those hand luggage cases. Hen night – one of them was still wearing pink fluffy deely bobbers. Then, in a flurry of huge leopard print scarf and laughter, a blonde fifty-something in a black maxi dress emerged. She had an expensive-looking red patent bag over her shoulder, leopard print shoes to match the scarf, and her hair was flicky blonde and mid-length.
Greg appeared behind her, in the trousers and shirt he’d worn to Ascot. The woman, mid-laugh, stepped forward and planted a kiss on his lips. It was a long peck, almost a smooch. Then she reached behind and, although Grace wasn’t sure, seemed to squeeze his bottom. They laughed. Oh God. A client! Grace felt sick.
The woman turned and skipped down the lobby steps to a red sports car parked close to the lobby. With a swish of a fancy key fob thing, she got in, fouffed her hair in the mirror, put on some shades and sped away.
Greg started walking down the steps to his car. Without daring to look over at him again, Grace took off the handbrake, slammed her car into reverse, and got the hell out of there. As she drove away, hot, stupid tears ran down her cheeks. She’d been a bloody fool, all over again. A bloody idiot. Why had she thought for a minute that dating Greg was her being controlled and in charge? What a joke! She hadn’t been protecting her heart. Her heart had come way off the rails and was careering down a one-way track on one of those pushy-pulley things. She was way, way out of control.
Gutted wasn’t the word. How could he? Somehow, between saying goodbye to her at the station last night, and now, he had managed to sleep with his first client. Well, congratulations, Greg! How much did he get for it? £200? £500? She angrily googled his agency website again, when she got in. It didn’t say, but everything he did had a price. Everything was fake. Everything he’d done, all those nice things he’d said. Fake, fake, fake. How could he kiss her like that and then go and make some cold hard cash shagging Mrs Fifty-something Leopard Print?
It was a done deal. Greg was a proper escort now. He was initiated.
And it was all over for him and Grace. She was absolutely gutted.
Chapter Twenty-eight: Imogen
A very happy woman sighed contentedly and languidly stretched her arms above her head. A happy woman who had gone back to bed after seeing Richard off up the drive. She didn’t care that he’d been spotted, not really. It was bad luck that both Grace and Frankie had seen him, but Imogen would explain to them properly later…that she was sorry, but she’d fallen in love. Maybe she’d pop over to see them tonight. For now, she was going to spend the rest of the morning in bed, chilling out and reliving the amazing sex she’d had with Richard.
And wow, it had been amazing. Amazing! He had been considerate, tender. Loving, exciting. He knew exactly what to do and when to do it. They had some music going: something 90s, Brand New Heavies, ‘Midnight at the Oasis.’ The lighting had been just perfect. Half moonlight, through her open window. There was a gorgeous eye-locking moment about 80 per cent in.
Everything had been perfect. He’d not attempted to talk dirty once. Talking dirty was an absolute bugbear of hers. If she heard the mere sniff of a ‘Do you like it when I do that, baby?’ her libido took off in a jumbo jet to Timbuctoo, never to return. Thankfully, there was none of that. He was lovely and silent, except when it was appropriate to be otherwise.
And afterwards, he’d been fabulous. He’d stroked her cheek and told her she was beautiful and then early this morning – they were both too wired to sleep in – he’d made her a bacon sandwich, and she’d put on his shirt, like they do in the movies, and she’d looked dead sexy in it, just as she was supposed to.
When he’d left, she’d lent him her huge grey fleece, to put over his suit – not a brilliant disguise for a lover, clearly, despite her making him pull up the hood (Gasman! Was that the best she could do?) – and he’d kissed her and told her he’d see her very, very soon. She told him she couldn’t wait.
‘Happy?’ he’d asked her, just inside her front door, looking faintly ridiculous.
‘Deliriously so.’
‘Me too. You’re the one for me, Imogen. I knew it as soon as I first saw your stroppy face.’
‘And you’re incredibly corny, Mr Stoughton. As well as being slightly rude. Now off you go.’
She lay in bed until eleven o’clock before she got bored. She wasn’t really a lying-in-bed person, even when she tried to be. She sat up and reached under it for her small laptop. She’d check her emails, have a mooch around the fashion blogs she liked to follow. She plumped up several pillows behind her and, sighing contentedly, opened up Outlook.
She had eleven new emails. A lot of it was junk: handbag sales, new beauty products on the market, newsletters she’d subscribed to but really should get around to unsubscribing from. There was an email from Marcia about Melissa May Scott, an actor she was thinking of signing up. Marcia wanted her to check out the notices for a play she’d done. Yep, yep, she’d do that later.
She was just about to close down Outlook and scoot over to Google when another email popped up. The subject said ‘Information’ and the sender was Carolyn Boot. The email sent the customary nervous chill down her spine, coupled with internal eye-rolling. That doomsday sense of oh flip, what does the old dragon want now? Carolyn had always had Imogen’s home email. When she’d worked for her, Imogen had to be on call for the old bat 24/7. What on earth was this about?
She opened up the mail.
Dear Imogen,
I thought it would be in your best interests to know that Richard Stoughton is in a relationship with another (much younger) woman. She was at Ascot yesterday. I’m not sure whether you saw her – she’s very slim and blonde and much younger than you. I suspect the relationship is a tumultuous one (aren’t the best always!) as they had words and she seemed quite upset. Furthermore, my husband and I were in New York last November and after meeting Richard for lunch, we saw him with the same woman and a child in Central Park. I believe Richard to be the boy’s father. Forearmed is forewarned, I believe, Imogen. I’m sure you will thank me for passing this very pertinant information onto you.
Regards,
Carolyn Boot
Strangely, Imogen’s first sensation was glee at the fact that Carolyn had made a spelling mistake – ‘pertinant’ not pertinent. Her second was a mixture of fear, despair, horror and nausea. What? Oh my God! It all came flooding into her brain in a horrible, awful rush – the young girl walking up the landing and crying, Carolyn’s cool smile when she said goodbye, Richard’s effusive display when Imogen returned to the box, which she now saw was a show of automatic recovery. No wonder he was laughing so loudly, showing off so heartily, it was a loud American smoke screen to cover whatever scene had just taken place.
Another woman? In a relationship? A child! Oh God, a child! Richard was father to that young woman’s son. She felt sick. She hadn’t had a hangover but one swept o
ver her now like a brutal tidal wave. She needed water, she needed carbs, she needed Nurofen. She needed to have not just read this bloody email. In a horrible click of her laptop mouse, Richard was no longer her Richard from Friends, he was no longer her Richard at all.
Carolyn’s delayed revenge. That’s what this was. She knew I’d sleep with him, thought Imogen, in a cold sweat. She knew I would, and she’d tell me afterwards. Strike while all irons were still hot. Bitch. Bloody bitch. But Imogen was also culpable. She should have known Richard was too good to be true. Too charming, too nice, too funny, too good-looking: too bloody perfect.
She wailed. He had been. He’d been perfect, for her. Oh God, oh God. This couldn’t be happening. ‘You’re the one for me,’ he’d said. Sebastian had said the same. How could she have been so stupid?
Unless…Carolyn had got it wrong. It was his sister, right? It was always his sister, in the movies. The girl the hero is talking to, mopping up tears from, having a brief kiss or cuddle with by a car or outside a shop or something. It always turns out, to huge relief all round, to be his bloody sister, and the heroine always goes, ‘Of course, how silly of me!’ and slaps her own forehead for being so dumb and not having seen the clearly obvious family resemblance. The woman was his sister and the boy was his nephew. Not his son. Carolyn had got it all wrong.
But. Why would his sister turn up to Ascot? And have sexy tumultuous words with him, in the box. It didn’t make sense. His sister would be in America, surely?
It wasn’t his sister, was it? It was a girl he was in a relationship with. A younger, slimmer, blonder girl. A girl who’d had his baby. A girl who was on one of those boozy Ascot coach trips, who’d had a lot to drink, who knew exactly where to find Richard. Or was she supposed to be a guest in his box all along? Had she rocked up and discovered he was there with another woman? Had he double-booked? She didn’t know. All she knew was, this girl had shattered all her illusions. That’s what they’d been. Illusions. He was a liar, a man who made women cry, a man who had babies with women and then met other women and didn’t tell them, a man who could not be trusted. Imogen felt like banging her head against the wall. She was right to have been afraid. She was right to be terrified of falling in love. But she’d gone and done it anyway. And now she must pay the price, just like she had all those years ago.
She’d been an utter fool.
The rest of the day was spent lying on a sofa in a pair of jersey pyjamas and angrily reliving all the ways in which Richard had been an absolute tragedy of a disappointment. And sobbing into a whole roll of toilet paper. And eating Twiglets. The only constructive thing she did was block his number from her phone. She should have done it the moment he kissed her.
On Monday morning, she left for work early. She didn’t take the Tube to Leicester Square as usual, but came out at Liverpool Street and walked to the underground car park under Richard’s office. She knew he got into the office at six a.m. and that between six and seven Nigel parked the car underneath the office and went to the local greasy spoon for a cup of tea and a bacon butty. She found Richard’s car, that gorgeous car with the leather interior, and put a Post-it note on his windscreen that said, ‘It’s over. I know about the woman at Ascot and your child. Imogen’, and then she walked back to Liverpool Street Station, got on the Tube and went to work.
Chapter Twenty-nine: Frankie
At around nine o’clock, long after Frankie had got back from Hylands and a while after she’d spent all afternoon not watching Wimbledon, she did something she’d made herself not do, ever since she and Rob had split: she looked at their wedding album.
On the first page was a large picture of Rob outside the church. He looked nervous, cheeky, expectant. There was one of him and his sister, Beth, his arm round her shoulders. They were both grinning from ear to ear. He looked excited. Beth had told her that Rob had been ready super early that day. Really early for him. He hadn’t drunk a drop the night before either, she’d been told, or eaten a kebab, like the others had. He’d wanted to be fresh for the day, he’d kept saying. Beth said all his mates had teased him for it, trying to get him to have a beer, but he’d refused. ‘No, not tonight,’ he’d said, apparently.
Frankie was excited too – she’d arrived ten minutes too early, and had to go round the block twice as she could see some of their friends, animated and laughing, still making their way into the church. Even when she’d finally told the car to stop, one minute after 2p.m., there were still a couple of stragglers making their way in. Everyone had been so on form, so happy. There were photos of some of their friends, outside the church before she’d turned up, taken with Rob. There was a funny one of someone doing bunny ears, behind Rob’s head. Then there were photos of her, in her dress, with her dad. She’d worn a huge meringue, in the palest of pale pinks, her hair pinned up into waves. She’d looked gorgeous; everyone had said so.
She turned the next page and smiled. She and Rob were coming down the aisle, after signing the register. With tears springing to her eyes, she remembered how Rob had practically marched her down there, laughing, as though he couldn’t wait to get her outside, into the sunshine and the pealing bells and the confetti, so they could begin their married life.
She looked at the photos again, slowly, from beginning to end, and she cried and cried and cried. For the people they’d been. For the people they were now. And for the huge gulf and four beautiful children that sat between the two.
After two hours of crying, her nose was red raw from being blown into less than soft kitchen roll and her eyes felt like onions. She lay on the sofa, slippers on, despite the heat. Every time she stopped and thought, enough now, she started bawling again. But she still didn’t know what she wanted. She thought she wanted him back. But she was terrified that having him come home would set them on the same road again – just slightly further back. Before they knew it, they would reach the exact same point again – the point where she’d had enough of it all and kicked him out.
She reckoned she could easily spend the entire night this way. Thinking and crying. Crying and thinking. She was just entering another ready bout of sobbing when her mobile phone rang. It was Rob. She sniffed a giant sniff and tested out her voice, ridiculously saying, ‘Hello, hello,’ into the silent living room, to make sure her voice wasn’t too wavery or croaky. Then, she pressed the green phone symbol and said it to him.
‘Hello?’
‘Frankie. Hi. It’s Rob. Tilly’s not well. I don’t know if it’s an A and E job or not but if it is I can’t go because the others are all asleep.’
‘A and E!’ Frankie sat up and one of her slippers fell off. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But she’s all feverish. Burning hot, all shivery. I’m pretty worried.’
‘Have you given her the pink paracetamol stuff?’
‘Yes, but it’s not doing anything yet. It was half an hour ago. Can you please come over, Frankie. I’m sure it’s not anything serious, but I’m beginning to panic a bit.’
‘Oh God,’ said Frankie. ‘Yes. I’m coming over. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’ She grabbed a jacket and her keys, changed her slippers for flip-flops and flew out of the front door.
When she got to Rob’s flat, he was pale and couldn’t muster a smile.
‘How’s she doing? She any better?’
‘I think so. I’m not sure. Come and have a look.’
Tilly was lying on Rob’s brown leather sofa, on a cotton sheet that he must have laid there for her. She was in her One Direction pyjamas and was fast asleep. Frankie placed a hand to her forehead. She felt hot and her face was all flushed.
‘Have you called the NHS number, whatever it is these days?’
‘No, I hadn’t thought of that. That was always your – ’
‘Department?’ She smiled ruefully. ‘What’s her temperature?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘That’s fine then. Normal.’ She had a sudden though
t. ‘Have you checked her for spots?’
‘Spots?’
‘Chicken pox.’
Tilly was the only one who’d never had it; the others all had. Frankie had even taken her to a chicken pox party when she was two – they were all the rage at the time – and Tilly still didn’t get it.
Frankie gently pulled up the bottom of her daughter’s pyjama top. There, on her tummy, was a smattering of the tell-tale, irregular-shaped spots, just emerging.
‘I’m sure that’s chicken pox,’ she said, with a sigh of relief. ‘I know it well.’ She did. She’d been the one to nurse the other three children through it: running tepid baths, applying cold flannels, giving them lectures on not scratching and scars. Rob hadn’t been involved. ‘I’m sure the paracetamol will kick in soon. Keep a note of the time you gave it to her. It’s every four hours. You can wake her, even through the night, to keep her dosed up. Or,’ she said. ‘I can take her home with me.’ She wanted to. She wanted to take Tilly home with her.
‘I don’t think we should disturb her,’ said Rob. ‘She’s out for the count. Can you stay, Frankie? Stay with me, to look after her?’
There was only one answer. ‘Okay,’ Frankie said. ‘I’ll stay.’
He put the kettle on, then they sat on the floor in front of the sofa, and the telly, which had some old comedy show on, turned down low. They talked in low voices. They talked and talked. About Tilly. About all the children, in turn, how they were doing at school, the wonderful and funny things they said, how they were growing up so fast. Then they started talking about TV programmes they used to watch together but had watched separately over the last few months, until Rob looked at Frankie and said, ‘I don’t blame you for chucking me out. I was awful, Frankie, I’m sorry.’
‘You were,’ she said.
‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘I was a lazy, self-centred, unappreciative git.’
Year of Being Single Page 23