The Other Us

by Fiona Harper

  I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. And the fact he doesn’t has made my decision about where we go from here inevitable. He has taken my choice away. I start to cry.

  ‘I’ve been patient up until now, haven’t I? If you’d come to me and told me this, I would have listened,’ I say, and then I pause for a moment, while I gather all the facts up in my head and test them for their truth. ‘You know what? I think I might even have gone along with it if you’d been honest with me. I loved you that much. It would have broken my heart but I would have tried to do what was best for both of us.’

  ‘I’m telling you now. Isn’t that enough?’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s too late.’

  That’s when he really starts to look panicked. ‘Too late? What do you mean?’

  ‘All this time you’ve been lying to me …’

  ‘I didn’t lie! I just didn’t tell you.’

  I walk up to him until our chests are only inches apart and I drop my voice to a whisper. ‘And when were you going to tell me? After the op? Or were you just going to keep it your little secret? Pretend the doctor had told you you’re firing blanks and hope I didn’t ask too many questions?’

  I see the guilt written all over his face.

  That’s when I leave him standing there so I can run upstairs. I make a quick phone call and then I pull a suitcase out of the wardrobe and start flinging clothes into it. Jude tries to stop me, taking things out, but I just slap his hand away and throw them back in again. The tears are coming thick and fast now. I can hardly see what I’m packing but I don’t even care. ‘It was the one thing I really wanted from you! And you couldn’t even give me that? Worse than that, you went behind my back, you were ready to lie to me for the rest of our lives!’

  Jude doesn’t answer. He just stands there looking sombre. I think he’s finally caught on to the fact there’s nothing he can say to help himself. Not now. Not tonight. Or ever, really. He’s crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.

  I’m going to leave tonight and I’m not coming back. That’s the truth. I understand now about the give and take, the ‘love is patient, love is kind’ stuff. I understand why it was disastrous for Becca and Grant, and why, as hard as I try, it will never work for me and Jude.

  It’s simple, really, when you figure it out.

  It has to be equal, that’s all. You both have to be prepared to do it, otherwise it creates an imbalance. I’m not saying it has to be perfect, mind you. I mean, even Dan and Becca still hit their speed bumps. What I’m saying is that both parties have to be willing to try.

  And Jude just isn’t. I’m not sure if it’s me or that he doesn’t have it in him, but what he wants will always come first. I think I’ve known that for a long time but I just haven’t wanted to face it. However, tonight has given me solid and unalterable proof. That’s why I can’t stay. That’s why I’m walking away from this life I chose. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny – the drive that drew me to him in the first place is going to be the final nail in our coffin.

  I zip the case closed and then I pick it up off the bed, drop it on the floor and wheel it out of the room. ‘Goodbye, Jude.’

  ‘Maggie! Wait!’

  I don’t wait, though. Jude wants to make a deal. He wants to come up with a offer that will make it all go away, but he’s already proved he has nothing else to give me.

  The cab I called for before I started packing is waiting for me outside. I tell the driver to take me to the Hamilton Hotel. If I’m going to cry my heart out, I might as well do it on Egyptian cotton sheets. I’ll be sending Jude the bill, after all …

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  I can’t sleep. I’ve taken a whole suite at the Hamilton, one that comes complete with a private terrace, so at five in the morning I put my coat on and head out there. I stand with my hands on the railing and look out over the quiet city streets. A pigeon lands on the other end of the rail and tilts its head, its beady eyes blinking at me.

  The occasional cab or night bus trundles down the street outside the hotel, their engines loud and rumbly in the early morning quiet, and I wonder who those people are and where they’re going, and if they understand they’re lucky that they know where they’re going.

  Because I don’t know where I’m going next. I haven’t the foggiest clue.

  It’s strange, when this whole weird experience began it didn’t even occur to me to that I might end up with neither of the men who’ve featured so heavily in my life – all my lives. That was probably pretty stupid of me.

  Anyway, I’m here now.

  I’m tempted to wish I could go back and do it all again, choose differently next time, but that’s what I thought I’d already done and I still messed it up. I still didn’t work it all out until it was too late.

  I look up at the sky. Are you having a good laugh? I ask. Because someone ought to be laughing about this, and it certainly isn’t me.

  But then I calm down. I can’t blame anyone else, celestial or otherwise, for the mistakes I made, for the things that were right in front of my face that I couldn’t see.

  I laugh out loud and it scares the pigeon away.

  It’s only now I’ve let go of all of it that I can see the truth. It was never about Jude or Dan, choosing the right man so I could be happy. It was never about who I loved. It was always about how I loved, that’s what made the difference.

  I sigh and turn to walk back inside. My legs are bare under my coat and it’s flipping freezing out here.

  My future is bare and clean, like a huge white room with nothing in it. It’s up to me to decide how to decorate it. All I can do now is take what I’ve learned and bring it with me, because that’s the only luggage I’ll truly need.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  I have that weird feeling again as I start to wake up, that sense that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. I flop over onto my back, keeping my eyes closed. Of course I feel that way. I’m in a hotel room. No wonder it feels unfamiliar, not like home.

  But as I lie breathing, I hear noises. The kind of noises one doesn’t normally hear in a hotel. I hear banging kitchen cabinets and a letterbox clanging as someone pulls a newspaper through it, and then I hear whistling …

  I hear whistling.

  I sit up, open my eyes and jump out of bed. I don’t care that I’m only wearing a pyjama top and knickers, I dash out the bedroom door and across the landing.

  Because it’s Dan I can hear whistling.

  I look up, imagining the sky above the concrete tiles on our roof. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don’t know why you gave me a second chance, but you did!

  I almost want to cry. I’ve jumped again, and this time I’m back with the man I love, the man who loves me back, and my own little Billy …

  I run down the stairs at full pelt then skid to a halt in the kitchen, wearing a smile so huge it hardly fits on my face. But that’s when I realise my brain hasn’t been firing on all cylinders, that I was so surprised and excited that I’ve missed some pretty vital information I should have picked up along the way.

  ‘Maggie? Why the heck are you grinning like that?’ Dan checks himself over. ‘Have I got toothpaste on my face or something?’

  I was going to throw myself at him, but now I can’t seem to move. I shake my head, eyes wide.

  ‘Then what?’ He wasn’t smiling along with me to start off with, and he definitely isn’t smiling now. Because this isn’t happy soon-to-be author Dan I recently left behind. This is my Dan. The original Dan. The one who hates me.

  I look down and check my legs, spot the cellulite and thread veins. No longer are they smooth and regularly pampered with spa treatments; they are slightly chubby and more than a little fuzzy.

  Yep. There’s no doubt about it.

  I’m back.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  ‘So are we going to this reunion tonight, or what?’ Dan asks as he munches on a piece of toast. ‘You said you weren’t but when I checked the Facebo
ok group you were on the list of people going.’

  ‘You checked the Facebook group?’

  He nods and swallows. ‘Rick contacted me and said he’s up for it. I thought it might be fun.’ He looks at me, waiting. I just nod. There are lots of thoughts in my head, just no sensible words.

  ‘So we’re going then?’

  I nod again.

  ‘You’re sure?’ He regards me suspiciously, as if my agreement has come too easily, as if he expects me to argue with him as a matter of course. ‘And it’s not going to be my fault somehow if you have a rubbish time and wish you hadn’t gone?’

  ‘No,’ I say softly, ‘of course not.’

  Dan makes a grunt and the expression on his face as he goes to brush his teeth is quite clearly, Yeah, right!

  I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen – our rather untidy kitchen, it has to be said – when he comes back down again. He mumbles something about needing to go to the library and then leans in to give me the habitual peck on the cheek. He obviously hasn’t shaved for a day or two, because the pale stubble along his jaw jabs me. I don’t flinch. I don’t do anything.

  But as he’s moving away, my hand shoots out and I grab his arm. ‘Wait.’

  He turns, puzzled. I look him in the eyes. I mean, properly look him in the eyes, not just glance in his direction, and then I rise up on my toes and press a soft kiss to his lips. ‘See you later,’ I whisper.

  I see the question marks in his eyes as he pulls away, the crease on his forehead, but I don’t see disgust, just surprise, and for that I am grateful.

  After Dan has left, I wander back upstairs and get dressed. I realise I don’t like many of my clothes any more. They all seem old and washed out of shape. I wonder what on earth I’ve got that I could wear to the reunion tonight. Fixating on that one thing, pulling everything from my tiny wardrobe and the cases under the bed that contain the overspill, helps. It gives me time to think, time to process.

  Is this real? Am I actually here?

  And if I am, what the heck was the rest of it? A dream? That’s far too Pam Ewing for my taste.

  The honest answer is I have no idea. The one thing I do know, down in my gut, is that this is it, the end. I can feel it the same way as you can when your car slides on fresh snow and then you find salted tarmac again. I’m gripped to this life now.

  I can’t find anything to wear so I phone Becca. It’s Saturday, after all, and there’s nothing she loves more than an impromptu shopping emergency. An hour and a half later, I’m parking at Bluewater.

  She’s sitting outside our usual cafe, waiting for me. I was deliberately twenty-five minutes late. I hug her fiercely when I see her. She laughs and asks me what the bear hug is in aid of but I just shake my head. ‘Just ’cos you’re my best friend and I love you. Now, let’s shop ’til we drop!’

  Becca instinctively heads for M&S. She usually jokes that as well as lines called Per Una and Autograph, they should have a line called Plain, Practical and Boring, because I’d choose clothes from it all the time, but I pull her into a smaller store before we get there. I just saw a petrol-blue dress in the window that reminds me of one I had in my life with Jude.

  Obviously, I have to get a bigger size, but I’m surprised how much it flatters, given how figure-hugging it is. We buy bright-red shoes for a pop of colour and I pick up some new make-up too. Becca can’t stop shaking her head and looking at me. ‘What’s got into you?’ she keeps saying but she’s clearly delighted that something has.

  ‘Only got one life to live,’ I say as I throw the bags in the boot of my car. ‘Might as well make the most of it.’

  I find a note from Dan saying he’s gone into town for something when I get back, so I go and get dressed and ready. I’m walking back down the stairs when he crashes through the front door just after six, and he’s so surprised when he sees me that he actually puts his shoes in the shoe tidy.

  ‘Wow!’ he says. ‘You look …’ He just stares after me as I walk past him and into the kitchen.

  ‘Thank you!’ I shoot back.

  ‘Do you need help with the zip?’ he asks.

  I nod. As I walked past him he must have spotted that I hadn’t been able to contort myself enough to manage the last two inches. I pop my new handbag on the table and turn, lifting my hair up so he has easy access to the zip. His fingers brush accidentally, softly, across the skin there as he pulls it up. I turn round and face him.

  ‘You never know,’ I say as I look at him from under my lashes. ‘I might need help getting out of it later on too.’

  I never actually thought you could actually see someone’s jaw drop, but Dan’s does it. His mouth stays closed, but the muscles around it go slack. I smile to myself and turn away.

  ‘You’d better get going,’ I say, glancing up to our bedroom. ‘We need to leave at half past.’ Dan turns and sprints up the stairs. Two minutes later I hear the shower running. Fifteen minutes later he’s back downstairs in his best black jeans and doing up the buttons on his chambray shirt, hair still slightly damp. That colour always did suit him.

  We’re just about to step out the door when my mobile rings. Dan gives me a nod indicating he’ll drive, so I pluck it out of my handbag and answer.

  ‘Mum?’

  A firework goes off inside my chest.

  ‘Mum? Are you there?’

  I grin at the phone. I can’t help it. ‘Yes, darling. I can hear you.’ I want to laugh and cry and jump around like a lunatic so the net-curtain-twitching neighbours are talking about it for weeks.

  ‘OK, I’m going to have to be quick.’

  I get into the car and close the door as I listen. ‘Me too. Dad and I are going out.’

  There’s a bit of a stunned silence but then Sophie collects herself. ‘Now, don’t be cross, but the rest of the guys want to go up to the islands after we’ve been to Ullapool. Lewis, I think, to see some standing stones, and I know I said I’d be home in three weeks, but I’d really like to go with them.’

  I imagine her chewing her lip and frowning. I can’t wait to see her again. Every selfish part of me wants to tell her to forget flipping standing stones, they’ve been there for thousands of years and they’ll probably still be there next summer, just jump on a train now and come home!

  ‘How much longer?’ I ask.

  I hear the hesitation in her voice. ‘Another week? Maybe two?’

  I sigh. ‘Then you’d better buy me an extra big bag of tablet before you come home. And I’m not joking! I want to eat my own bodyweight in sugar.’

  Sophie’s laugh is the best thing I’ve heard in three lifetimes. ‘I will! You wait and see! Thank you, Mum! I love you!’

  ‘I love you, too, sweetie,’ I say, and then she’s gone. I know that even though the connection has been cut, we’re both still smiling.

  I can see Dan looking over at me from the driver’s seat. He keeps glancing my way. I know he’s thinking about how I fought tooth and nail with Sophie about how long she was away, that I’d whittled her original plans from six weeks down to four. I can hear him thinking the same thing Becca did this afternoon: What’s got into you?

  Me, I think. I’ve got into me. Finally. Because, for a long time, I think I was missing in action.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  The reunion is in the large panelled room at the front of Oaklands House. It was our common room when we were students there, but now the battered chairs and ring-marked coffee tables are gone, replaced by nice carpet and waiters with trays of wine glasses. The powers that be have obviously decided it’s too nice to let the students loose in any more.

  Becca, predictably, wasn’t waiting for us in the car park as we’d arranged. She’s running late, she said, and she’s got a surprise for us and that we should go ahead without her. So that’s what Dan and I do.

  There’s a group of people I recognise instantly as I walk through the door, art-course friends, and they squeal when they see me. Dan spots his old flatmate, Rick. We no
d to each other and split up and go separate directions.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Francesca Withers says. ‘Is that Dan? You’re still with him?’

  I nod. ‘Yes.’

  I’m still with him. For richer, for poorer. For better, for worse. Although I’m hoping we’ve had enough of ‘worse’ and we can tip the scale in the other direction. I look over to where he’s standing with Rick. They’re laughing stupidly at something Rick has just said and they both look as goofy as they did at nineteen, except Rick has hardly any hair now.

  I know it’s not going to be easy. I know Dan and I are going to have tough times ahead, but I have something now that I didn’t have when I was here last. Hope. We’ve turned it around once before. I know we’ve got it in us.

  There’s a commotion near the door and without even looking I know it’s Becca making an entrance. I turn and smile, and then I smile harder, because she’s not alone. She’s got a rather nice-looking man in tow, and he’s ‘glowing’ just as hard as she is.

  ‘I want you to meet Sy,’ she says as she sweeps up to the group I’m with.

  I smile at Mystery Man and kiss his cheek. ‘I thought you couldn’t make it?’

  He shrugs. ‘Shuffled a few things around.’ He gazes adoringly at Becca. ‘She’s a special lady. I wanted to be here for her because I knew she was nervous.’

  ‘Yes, she is special,’ I reply. ‘And I’m glad you’re taking care of her, because if you don’t, I may have to track you down and hurt you.’

  Sy laughs, but he nods good-naturedly. Warning received and understood. However, I have a feeling she’s hit gold this time. I don’t get a chance to tell her that yet, though, because she spots someone she knows across the room and screams, ‘Danny Fierro! How are you, you old tart?’ and rushes over to him and they air kiss loudly and begin trying to catch up on the last twenty-five years in fifteen seconds. I always did think drama students had a volume that was one notch louder than everyone else’s.

  I work my way round the room, saying hello to people, even making new acquaintances – people I think I will get on with now, even if we had nothing in common back when we were twenty – and I don’t want to go and hide in the corner once.