The One That Got Away

by Lucy Dawson

  ‘Yeah, I bought you something back actually,’ I say and hand over the small paper bag containing the gingerbread man.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, pleased. ‘Oh, what happened to his legs?’ he peers into the bag.

  ‘They fell off.’

  ‘In your mouth?’ he smiles at me. ‘Never mind.’ He takes a bite. ‘So, what was up with Joss then?’ he asks through a mouthful. ‘What was the crisis?’

  ‘Um, a work thing,’ I mumble vaguely.

  ‘What sort of work thing? Is she OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  My phone starts to ring upstairs. Damn, I forgot to switch it off; what if it’s Leo? I make to hurry upstairs but Dan catches my arm.

  ‘Just leave it,’ he says, not unreasonably. ‘I want to spend some time with you now. They’ll leave a message if it’s important.’

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  It’s usually one of my favourite things in the world, cosily snuggling up on the sofa with Dan having a cup of tea and a hug, but I can’t relax for being terrified about who that might have been calling me.

  ‘How many times? Stop chewing your nails,’ Dan says, stroking my shoulder.

  I pull my finger from my mouth instantly, I wasn’t aware I had been.

  ‘You’ll have nothing but stumpy nubbins left. Did you not have lunch?’

  ‘I’ve snagged one of them on my jumper,’ I fib. ‘I’ll just nip upstairs and get a file.’

  But when I do sneak into my office and check my phone, it’s actually only a rather cross message from Mum asking me please to ring and let them know I am OK. Oh, and am I still coming to Sunday lunch?

  I told her on Thursday, didn’t I? I text back a yes. On the upside, I have no other texts at all and no missed calls, which is a relief. As is discovering in the loo moments later that I’ve come on. Thank God. Not only do I have a bona fide excuse not to have sex until after my tests, FAR more importantly, the morning-after pill has worked.

  Things are looking up … assuming I don’t have herpes of course.

  But as I pass the study on my way back downstairs, I notice my BlackBerry is flashing with a new message. Mum has obviously remembered something else.

  But it’s not her.

  What we felt when we saw each other again was REAL. I know I didn’t imagine it. I’m not giving up on you. Just so you know x

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘You not bringing your phone?’ Dan nods at it on the side, as we’re about to leave the house.

  I glance over – I’ve kept it switched off since last night – and shake my head.

  He looks slightly surprised, as well he might given that I’m usually surgically attached to it. ‘I just want a day off,’ I explain and he nods understandingly.

  ‘Fair enough.’ He holds out a hand. ‘Come on then.’

  In the car on the way over to my parents’ we listen to music in comfortable silence. Well, Dan does. I’m trying not to think about Leo. The only thing I felt when I saw him again at the hotel was surprised confusion. OK, I admit we had a very slightly – on my part alcohol-charged – flirty conversation. I can’t deny I always used to enjoy talking to Leo, I did, it was one of the things I found most attractive about him. But our conversation certainly didn’t carry the emotional weight he’s given it, it was just one of those flirts you have safe in the know -ledge you are in a relationship with someone else. Maybe that’s the point though, maybe you can never flirt like that with an ex, because it’s just all too loaded. I don’t feel anything for Leo now, except a very real and very strong desire for him to go away. I cannot believe what we did. How easily it happened. It’s terrifying.

  ‘Here we are!’ Dan says as we tuck on to my parents’ drive behind both of my brothers’ cars.

  ‘You managed to find some room then? Hello, love,’ Dad kisses me when he opens the front door. ‘Why have you got a hire car?’

  ‘I had a slight mishap,’ I say as I walk past him.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he pulls a face. ‘I shan’t ask any more. Dan, get yourself inside, it’s arctic out here.’ He reaches out and puts a kind hand on Dan’s shoulder, guiding him in as he simultaneously hoofs the overexcited dogs out of the way with his foot. ‘We just tried to call you actually, Molly – bread sauce emergency – but your phone was off.’

  ‘I’ve left it at home.’ I unbutton my coat. ‘I’m having the day off.’

  ‘Very sensible. If you make yourself permanently available people will only ask you to do things. Now, what would you both like to drink?’ He starts to walk up the hall to the kitchen, the dogs trotting happily after him.

  As we approach the kitchen a general ruckus grows louder – a crashing of saucepans, Karen asking ‘Meg – shall I do all of this broccoli?’ my brothers laughing and a small voice eagerly saying ‘Daddy, look what I’ve made! Daddy, look!’

  ‘Hi!’ I give everyone a wave as I walk in to a chorus of hellos, stepping over my youngest nephew Harry so I can give Mum a kiss.

  ‘Hello you bad girl,’ she kisses me back, wipes her hands on her apron and moves over to the vegetable rack. ‘Not picking up your phone on purpose. Hello, Dan! How are you?’

  ‘Very well thanks, Meg. You?’

  ‘Lovely, thanks,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Had a good week?’

  ‘Not bad, not bad.’

  ‘Good,’ she bends down and begins to rummage around amongst some potatoes and onions.

  ‘So what’s new with you then, little sis?’ my oldest brother Chris says, from his usual position on the sofa absently reading the paper.

  ‘Absolutely nothing at all,’ I say carefully, spying Lily’s hair-tie on the floor and picking it up before it gets lost.

  ‘Except we’re officially trying for a baby!’ Dan says eagerly.

  I spring up like some reverse jack trying to climb back into the box, and spin to face him, aghast. Everyone shuts up completely, even the kids. I can practically hear a drop of condensation run down the steamy kitchen window over the sink.

  ‘Well, not quite yet we haven’t,’ Dan corrects himself and I close my eyes. ‘But we will be. Which is – very exciting.’ He trails off.

  Mum, usually adept at dealing with awkward situations, has frozen in the middle of the room, holding a large cabbage in one hand and a bag of carrots in the other. Stuart stares fiercely at Dan, a little like I imagine a middle-aged male gorilla would do if a younger upstart burst into the enclosure poised to crazily start chucking bananas around everywhere, while Maria focuses carefully on a spot on the floor. Chris lowers his paper slowly, wary of moving too fast in case he triggers an accidental stampede. He gives Karen an incredulous look of ‘Did he actually just say that?’

  Only Dad continues like nothing has happened. ‘Well that’s great news, Dan,’ he says kindly. ‘So who’s driving?’ he sticks his head back round the fridge. ‘You then I’m guessing, Molly?’

  I nod as Dan clears his throat awkwardly, having realised he’s shared a little too much.

  ‘Okey-dokey, Diet Coke then?’ Dad offers. ‘Dan, red or white? We’ve got both on the go. Meg,’ he nods at Mum, ‘you’ve got a hole in the bottom of that carrot bag.’

  Mum manages to somehow drag herself back on track. ‘What? Oh well done, so I have. Karen, could I pass these to you? Will you? Thanks. The peeler’s in the drawer, or the dishwasher – or somewhere,’ she flusters. Only Lily is quietly minding her own business, taking advantage of the situation to scoop water from the dogs’ bowls and surreptitiously force-feed one of them from the spout of a tiny plastic teapot.

  ‘What time’s lunch?’ Dad continues calmly. ‘Would it be acceptable to watch the kick-off before laying the table?’ He doesn’t wait for the answer. ‘Anyone else want to join me?’

  ‘I will Dad,’ Stuart stands up quickly, tucking Harry under his gym-honed arm like a rugby ball. He doesn’t look at Dan, just stomps past him, glaring at me en route to the living room instead, like it’s somehow all my fault that he’s bee
n forced to acknowledge his little sister having sex.

  ‘Me too,’ says Chris – daddy-long-legs sensing an open window. ‘Come on kids, let’s get out of everyone’s hair for a bit.’

  Helpfully, the dogs – relieved to have a reason to escape Lily’s impish hands – scramble up to follow suit and so the kids happily go trotting after them in turn. That just leaves the rest of us peeling the veg and pointlessly opening cupboards and the oven, while wracking our brains for something more socially appropriate to say.

  ‘I might go and watch the rugby too,’ Dan motions to the door, sensibly avoiding meeting my eye.

  ‘I would,’ Mum says quickly and he legs it.

  Once they’ve all gone, Mum, Karen and Maria stop what they’re doing and wait for me to say something.

  ‘You know,’ I try lightly, ‘I think maybe I will have that glass of wine, after all.’

  Over lunch things lighten up a little. During pudding, Oscar, who is sitting under the table happily playing with a car from the toy box, starts to sing something to himself.

  ‘That’s a nice song Os,’ Chris remarks. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘It’s for Christmas. I made it up. It’s called “The Rat …’” Os pauses thoughtfully, and for dramatic effect, ‘“… Is Dead.”’

  We all giggle and Karen shrugs, clueless, in a ‘Don’t ask me,’ sort of way.

  ‘Last week,’ Chris confides, ‘when I had to go to Paris overnight, I was on the Eurostar and these two blokes across the way were talking about how much they hated leaving for work in the morning, because their kids were all small tearful faces and ‘Don’t go Daddy, stay and play with me!’ clinging on to their trouser legs as they were trying to get out of the door, that sort of thing. One of them was almost choking up. I was sitting there thinking ‘Ahh, bless’ – a bit patronising; smug older dad. Then when I got to the hotel I opened my case and someone,’ he does an exaggerated motion in the direction of under the table, ‘had done me a drawing. Of a daddy, a little boy with a sad face, and a big heart with a zig zag down the middle.’

  ‘Oh!’ My mother drops her fork and covers her mouth.

  ‘I know,’ Chris laughs. ‘I bawled like a baby.’

  A little voice pipes up. ‘Are you talking about me, Daddy?’

  Chris laughs again. ‘Yes I am – trunky.’ Then we hear a wail from the other room that announces Harry is no longer asleep.

  ‘I’ll go,’ says Maria, standing up as Lily runs back into the room. ‘I didn’t wake him up! I just touched his foot!’ she insists innocently.

  Dan grins at me and squeezes my hand under the table. It’s a squeeze that says, ‘This is going to be us!’ He looks happy, really happy.

  I grip his hand too and focus hard on his smile.

  After lunch, Mum finally manages to pounce on me, like a wily old lioness who has been biding her time, once we’re all hanging up damp tea towels and sloping off fatly to collapse in the sitting room. I realise I am the last of the pack to leave the kitchen as she grabs me firmly, hoicks me back in, and shuts the door.

  ‘So?’ she says, one hand on hip.

  ‘What?’ I shift uncomfortably, reminded of the period when she used to routinely nearly catch me having a crafty fag behind Dad’s shed. I’d have just enough time to fling the cigarette over the fence into next door’s garden, and fan the air desperately with the baggy sleeves of my enormous 80s jumper, while never being quite sure if she could still smell the smoke hanging in the air.

  ‘Molly, come on.’

  Who am I trying to kid? She can always smell the smoke in the air. The woman has the nose of a police sniffer dog. ‘What’s going on?’

  My blood goes cold. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘On Tuesday you were grumbling about feeling baby pressure and today Dan says you’re—’ she struggles for the right phrase, ‘all guns blazing.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ she says, looking right at me. ‘I know there is.’

  I push the memory of me and Leo kissing – falling back on to the hotel bed – out of my head and hope to God Almighty her psychic mum powers don’t extend to being actually able to read my mind.

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ I lie defensively. I actually almost want to tell her. She’s my mum, but that’s exactly why I can’t. I cannot tell my mother that, so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing, I shagged Leo at a conference hotel in Windsor.

  ‘I simply don’t believe you. Something’s changed. I can tell it has.’

  ‘Yeah, me,’ I say eventually, and start to pick at the edge of the tea towel. ‘What I want has changed.’

  ‘OK,’ she says suddenly, ‘so tell me what it was that you were wary about before, which isn’t bothering you any more.’

  My warning bells start to ring. I’m not falling for clever mum-psychology.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I say defensively.

  Before she can say anything else, the kitchen door opens and Dad comes in carrying an empty cup. ‘Oscar knocked my tea over. Have you got a cloth? Karen’s using the towel from the downstairs loo.’ He looks between us. ‘Everything all right?’

  I suddenly find myself surprisingly near to tears. ‘Can we please not do this? Can you just tell me you’re happy for me? Whatever it is you’re both thinking?’

  Taken aback, they look worriedly at one another.

  ‘It’s not that we—’ Mum begins, but Dad gently says ‘Shhh,’ and shakes his head lightly. She falls quiet and Dad puts his mug down, takes a step over towards me and wraps me in a big, comforting bear hug. He rocks me gently on the spot and kisses the top of my head, as if I am a little girl again. Then he releases me, picks up the J-cloth and ambles off into the other room without saying another word.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy,’ Mum says, then adds slowly, ‘you are happy, aren’t you Molly?’

  ‘Yes,’ I insist, ‘I am.’

  Which is true, because Dan is over the moon about having a baby – although I’ll be having words with him later about his announcing it as a work in progress. But he’s very happy – and that is all that matters.

  That night, Bec calls to thank me for doing her online dating profile.

  ‘Moll, it was really sweet! I nearly cried at all of the nice things you said. So how’s your day been?’

  ‘Not bad thanks. Listen, can I call you back? It’s just I’m in the bath.’

  ‘Oh! I’ve done it again! I’m so sorry! Multitasking eh?’

  Something like that. Actually, I brought my phone into the safety of the locked bathroom so I could check my messages without the fear of Dan looking over my shoulder. But now I’m feeling a bit foolish for being so apparently over-cautious in keeping the phone switched off all day, because for all of his melodramatic ‘I’m not giving up on you,’ Leo has sent me nothing at all, and neither has he called me … I knew it. They were just words to him. Words he liked hearing himself say. Leo has always been the star in the movie of his own making.

  Except as I’m towelling myself dry in our bedroom – once I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security – and Dan has walked in, that’s when my phone goes off on the bed with a text; like it deliberately waited for him.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asks, climbing under the covers.

  I peer at the screen, my heart having constricted to half its normal size, but then I relax. ‘Pearce,’ I tell him truthfully.

  ‘Why’s he texting you on a Sunday night?’

  ‘He’s read some negative stuff about MediComma in one of the Sunday papers,’ I say, absently reading the text ‘He was just letting me know.’ I delete it.

  ‘Oh, right.’ Dan looks rather nonplussed. ‘How’s your tummy feeling? Still got period pains?’

  ‘A bit,’ I say, instinctively resting my hand on it. Which reminds me, I want to tell him that I’d rather not tell everyone we’re trying. ‘
Listen, can I talk to you about what you said before lunch about us—’ but before I can say anything else, my phone lights up again.

  ‘I’m going to throw that bloody thing out of the window,’ Dan says only half-joking. ‘Is it Pearce again?’

  ‘No,’ I turn casually away from him so he can’t see my face. ‘It’s just Joss. I’ll turn it off now.’ I stare intently at the screen.

  I’m thinking about you right now. Xxx

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘I can’t believe you barred my number from your phone,’ Leo says incredulously. ‘Do you even know how that felt? It was painful enough when I realised you’d blocked me on Facebook. I don’t understand … why are you doing this?’

  ‘I’m not doing anything!’ I have to close my eyes for a moment and swallow down my mounting frustration as I stand on the wet street listening to him. I should have known better than to answer a call on an unknown number, but this is my work phone, I have to take calls when they come in. ‘You’re doing this Leo, not me, YOU. I just want you to leave me alone. Why can’t you understand that?’

  He ignores me. ‘I’ll buy a million more pay as you go phones to get through to you, if that’s what it takes. I’m not giving up on us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I’m coming close to losing it. ‘There is no us! You’ve got to stop this!’

  ‘No. Not until you believe me. I can’t stop thinking about you, I’ve realised that—’

  ‘I don’t have time for this Leo,’ I cut across him. ‘I’m late for an appointment. I have to go. Please, don’t call me again. I mean it, OK?’

  I hang up and with a shaking hand, slip the phone back in my bag and walk into the anonymous London clinic. He’s just made an already horrible morning even worse. I’m already terrified I’m going to see someone I know here. In a lot of ways this is even worse than my trip to the doctor’s. Although there’s a similar sense of deep shame and embarrassment, it’s the guilt that’s killing me by inches. Dan left for work this morning cheerily telling me to have a good day; no idea that I was actually going to be about three trains behind him, not a clue that I would be spending my morning being tested for STD’s.