The One That Got Away

by Lucy Dawson

‘No, I just thought it would make sense to get my own number and start using it now, in case I have to give my work one back in the new year …’ I duck down and pretend to get something out of a file under the desk so he can’t see my face.

  ‘What did you get?’

  ‘I don’t know, just some bog standard thing.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He nods.

  ‘Get back to bed now, sicknote,’ I order gently, ‘and I’ll bring you that cuppa.’

  * * *

  Only once I’m in the safety of the car, having left to go to my first appointment of the day, do I text Leo back furiously. I know Joss said ignore him but I can’t not react to what he said, the prospect is too terrifying.

  Am NOT telling anyone anything! No plan needed. Leave me alone!

  I receive no response, which is actually almost as unnerving as getting a message. It’s a relief to have Dan at home when I get back – reassuring – and when he doesn’t go back the following day either I’m secretly pleased.

  ‘Your new phone’s here,’ he calls when I arrive back after a morning of traffic jams, a late arrival that wasn’t my fault and a message from Leo.

  Stop panicking! Know you so well! Have booked a hotel in Brighton Friday night so we can have dinner … we will sort this babe. Xx

  I activate the new phone, charge it all up and by ten to six I am upstairs in my office, almost smugly waiting to switch my BlackBerry off.

  But with four minutes to go, he beats me again.

  And don’t worry about having to tell them. I’M going to do it x

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘You were!’ I say down the phone, practically in tears I’m so frustrated and frightened, to say nothing of the fact I’m exhausted because I barely slept last night. ‘You were threatening me!’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ Leo insists. ‘I love you! Why would I threaten you of all people? I meant that I’ll make this whole thing as easy as I can for you. It’s hard to get the right tone across in a text, but if you won’t speak to me …’

  ‘This whole thing?’ I repeat. ‘Leo, THERE IS NO WHOLE THING! I don’t want to be with you, I’m not leaving my husband. I don’t care what you do, if you stay with Helen or not, I just want you to leave me alone!’

  ‘Don’t shout,’ he says quietly. ‘Just because you’re stressed out, you don’t need to take it out on me.’

  Oh my God! If the car window wasn’t shut I’d throw the fucking phone as far away from me as I could.

  ‘I know it’s hard to think about hurting people, but we can’t undo what we’ve done, Molly. What we know we feel.’

  That’s what does it. Hearing him of all people telling me how I feel. Something breaks in me like someone snapping a sharp icicle. Shivering with anger, I force my voice to try and sound as calm as humanly possible.

  ‘I’m going to say this one last time Leo. Leave me alone. You want threats? Come near me again, contact me again and I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

  I hang up, start the car and swerve out of the lay-by back on to the road. I’m going to be late for my first meeting. I don’t even know what I meant by that, telling him I wouldn’t be responsible for what I’d do. What can I do? Nothing! I can’t do anything at all. I am completely powerless. Whatever action I might take would involve needing to tell someone what happened in that hotel – or might result in HIM telling someone what we did, and he knows it.

  I don’t believe for a second that he wasn’t threatening me. He was! And I know exactly how it feels when someone just steps into your life and rips your world apart like that … I am terrified of him doing it to Dan; the explosion it would cause.

  If only Leo’s stupid wallet hadn’t been in my bag; he would have kept walking out of that hotel. We’d made our peace. We should have just gracefully exited each other’s lives … and if I’d have called Dan first thing that morning and said sorry straight away, when Leo turned up, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so unsettled – I’d have been more on my guard.

  Surely now though, even he cannot keep acting as if we have a future, pretending that I am waiting for him to prove himself to me. I have just been as blunt as it is possible to be. Not even Leo can twist that … can he? Please God he will now leave me alone. I didn’t want it to have to end like this, but frankly, I’ll settle for any end I can get.

  ‘I called the landlord about the scaffolding, that’s how bored I am,’ Dan says when he brings yet another cup of tea up to my office after lunch. ‘He said it could be up for ages yet, the builders are on another job now and they can’t start work on the roof anyway until the weather picks up. I don’t know why they bothered putting it up in the first place.’ He paces about the small room before finally sitting down on the seat in the corner. ‘Do you think I should have gone in today? I do feel a bit better.’

  ‘Well you can go back tomorrow, can’t you?’ I check my watch. ‘Shit, I’m late.’

  ‘Don’t go!’ he looks pained. ‘Cancel your meeting. I’ve not even got any decent DVDs left now.’

  I get to my feet and start to gather my stuff hurriedly. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to – oh, I meant to say, do you mind if I go and see Bec after work? She wants to take me out for a birthday drink because she’s working this weekend.’

  ‘In town?’ he blows his nose.

  ‘Yeah, so I won’t be late.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’ll probably get an early night anyway,’ he shoves the tissue in his pocket, ‘see the last of this off. You should definitely go – have fun.’

  Once the last meeting has finished I get back into the car and put my seat belt on. It’s slightly too early to switch the BlackBerry off. I better give it another half an hour, but then hopefully, after this morning, that’s going to turn out to be an unnecessary precaution. I know Joss said to ignore Leo, but sometimes you have to stand up and come out of your corner fighting. Maybe it was better that I called him and let rip. OK, so he insisted I’d misunderstood, but – well, it sounded like a threat to me.

  At least Bec doesn’t know about all of this Leo stuff, which is great because it means she won’t feel she has to ask me about it tonight and I won’t waste a nice evening discussing it with her. It’ll be a relief to think about something else. I check my watch … the antenatal class I’m picking her up from doesn’t finish for another half an hour yet. Plenty of time to get there. I AM going to have a nice evening. I am …

  The community centre smells slightly musty when I arrive and let myself in. I glance uncertainly up and down the dark corridors and notice at the far end to the right, a light shining out from under a door – that must be them.

  I decide I’ll nip to the loo while they finish up and tentatively start to investigate. A door to the left pushes open to reveal a storage room containing a few yoga mats and a CD player. Another a little further on takes me into a small kitchen with some dirty teaspoons on the side, a jar of coffee and some assorted chipped mugs below a cupboard, on which someone has Sellotaped a note saying, ‘Please leave this kitchen as you would like to find it!’

  Heels clicking on the worn lino as I venture tentatively up the hall, I try a third door. Pulling the light cord – which makes the strip lighting flex noisily – harsh light floods the room and I jump as I catch sight of my reflection in some mirrors opposite. It’s a male changing room I think, if the smell is anything to go by, but no one is around and the cubicles I find round the corner are surprisingly clean.

  I’ve just flushed the loo when I hear the main swing door go, someone has just come in. Oh no, I hope it’s not a football team piling in from outside or something, how embarrassing. I wait for a moment to hear voices, so I can work out how many people are there, but there’s nothing – in fact it’s eerily quiet, and inexplicably the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I can’t explain it, but something doesn’t feel right … and I don’t want to stay here a second longer. I lunge for the cubicle door and stumble back out into the main changing area, which is empty … Seconds l
ater I nearly have a heart attack though, as a heavily pregnant woman bursts in clutching a mobile phone to her ear and insisting ‘No, you don’t understand, I’m desperate for the loo, I’ll call you back OK?’ She hangs up and holds the door ajar for me with her other hand. ‘People keep ringing to see if I’ve had it yet!’ she volunteers, looking down at her stomach and smiling.

  I manage a sympathetic smile back, thank her and as I slip back out into the dark, empty corridor, a door bangs somewhere else in the building, as if someone has just gone through it. At the exact same moment, or maybe it was slightly earlier, I’m not sure, another one right at the far end of the corridor yanks open and a second pregnant lady appears together with Bec.

  ‘Glasses should be in the top cupboard above the sink,’ Bec says as she flicks a light on. Then she sees me. ‘Molly!’ she says. ‘What are you doing skulking around in the dark? We’re down here.’ She beckons me enthusiastically. ‘No, come in, it’s fine, we’re nearly done. This is my lift tonight, everyone,’ she beams as I make my way into the room. The group smile back at me and wave, albeit lethargically, some of them look ready to drop then and there.

  ‘Now Kelly, you were just about to say something about your experience of the heightened sense of smell which women often experience during pregnancy?’ Bec turns back to the group confidently, as I quietly sink on to a chair, the heebie-jeebies, the prickly sensation of fear, settling back down now I’m with other people. Never mind suspecting Leo of losing his grip on reality; I’m not that far behind him.

  ‘Yes, well, I hope you don’t mind me telling people this,’ the woman turns to glance at her husband, who looks pretty worried, presumably because he has no idea what she is going to say, let alone if he will mind, ‘but for me it was your breath. Right from day one to be honest. It wasn’t bad or anything,’ she explains to everyone, ‘I just couldn’t bear it.’

  Some of the other women nod their heads wisely in agreement. ‘And,’ she continues, the bit firmly between her teeth, ‘his trousers. Oh my God! I hated the smell of his work trousers,’ she looks around the room. ‘I had to make him take them off at the front door.’

  The mental image that conjures of her poor tired husband getting back from the office clutching a briefcase and stripping to his pants while still wearing a shirt and suit jacket makes the corners of my mouth turn up and I have to look at the floor quickly before Bec meets my eye. I hear the wobble in her voice as she says, ‘Well, the good news is it obviously passed as you’re er …’ she pauses and gathers herself, ‘wearing trousers tonight Dave. Well done you.’

  We’re still laughing as we get into the car.

  ‘I mean what are you supposed to say to something like that? Her poor husband,’ Bec says. ‘I don’t know how he puts up with her. Guess how old she is?’

  ‘Um, thirty-two?’ I hazard.

  ‘Yeah, actually she is,’ Bec says, disappointed. ‘I think she looks much older though, don’t you? Well, obviously you don’t. Anyway, speaking of getting older, “Happy Birthday for Saturday – Happy Birthday for Saturday”,’ she sings. ‘“Happy Birthday, dear Molly, Happy Birthday for Saturday.” Here …’ she reaches into her vast bag and pulls out a bottle of Moët and a card, which is really sweet of her. ‘Thirty-four!’ she says. ‘You’re so old!’

  ‘Steady on there, Smugly,’ I say quickly, as she pops them on the back seat. ‘You’re not that far behind.’

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ she says happily. ‘Five months is practically half a year. I wonder where we’ll be this time next year. Shit, Moll,’ she says. ‘By the time it gets to my birthday, you might be pregnant!’ She pats my leg delightedly. ‘Imagine that!’

  What with everything else, I’d practically forgotten about the baby stuff. I shift in my seat. ‘It’s early days yet, Bec.’

  ‘‘Course it is,’ she says quickly. ‘Don’t worry. It’s usually if nothing’s happened after ten months to a year it’s a good idea to get checked out. You’ve got loads of time yet.’

  Wow, that actually is ages. ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Ten months?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  Huh. I did not know that.

  ‘Thanks for coming to get me,’ she yawns. ‘It’s such a pain that my car died. I can’t wait to get it back tomorrow. Anyway – to the bar, birthday girl.’

  By the time we’ve found a free table, got a drink and Bec has filled me in on some of the men who have already responded to the devastatingly brilliant dating profile I wrote for her – one of whom she is having an online chat with tomorrow night – I’m starting to relax a bit. I am actually very pleased she and Joss are looking forward to their respective dates. We even have a toast to friends who can always take you out of yourself. Then she starts to tell me in more detail about the blokes she’s been meeting online.

  ‘Most of them seem pretty nice, to be honest,’ she chatters away. ‘I just liked David’s smile best. There was this one guy who I think had English as his second language. His friend said, a bit ominously, that he has a “healthy daily routine”, which sounded like regular bowel movements, although apparently it “includes running” and always walking people “back to the bus stop after dinner”.’

  I giggle.

  ‘He said he wanted someone who was also “in good shape” with a “healthy daily routine”, but who must also be able to “hold a good conversation”, which I think is actually a little ambitious on his part.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ I’m intrigued.

  ‘Oh, don’t. That was the worst bit.’ She laughs. ‘He was dressed in full ski gear in his picture. You get internet on your BlackBerry don’t you?’

  ‘Um, I get emails. I don’t ever go online with it, though.’

  ‘Give it here, let’s have a look. I’ll see if I can show you what Kyle looks like.’

  ‘Kyle?’ I laugh. ‘Urrgh!’ I pass it to her and she fiddles around. ‘Oh. You’ve only got maps and MySpace.’

  ‘Maps?’ I say, interested. ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘See?’ She holds it up to me and shows me the icons.

  I take the phone from her and click on it. Immediately a map appears with an anonymous profile box and a little arrow pointing at a street. Above it, it says MollyJo 1m ago and Brighton, UK. It’s also offering me options. I peer at the screen. The arrow is pointing at the road Bec and I are on.

  ‘Wow!’ I exclaim. ‘That’s amazing! It’s plotted where we are. How has it done that?’ Bec peers over my shoulder.

  I click on the options and an email address I don’t recognise, but containing my name, pops up, along with options to change your status, change your photo, edit privacy and see friends. I click on ‘See Friends’ – but it just offers me the chance to invite others to show on my map. So I go into Privacy. It seems to be set to ‘Detect Location’. Whatever that means.

  ‘I don’t get this,’ I look up at Bec. ‘Why would I need to know where I am when I’m already here? What’s it for?’

  She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Dan when you get home. He’s the IT expert.’

  ‘It’s a free application that you can download,’ Dan says. ‘If you go on to … here … it’ll give you traffic updates … here you can get directions … and there … you can add friends so you can see where they are. Say you wanted to see Joss on here. You text or email her a link asking her to be your buddy. If she says yes, she pops up on this map too. You know where she is and she knows where you are, unless you choose to withhold your location, in which case you can see her, but she can’t see you.’

  ‘But I haven’t downloaded anything! You’re sure it doesn’t just come with the phone?’

  He shakes his head. ‘You have to opt into this … give your permission to appear,’ he explains as I look at him blankly.

  ‘Maybe work added it and forgot to tell me,’ I suggest.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Hang on though, you’re saying this map is showing someone else where I am?’ I frown.r />
  He nods.

  ‘Does that mean I could be saying I was at a meeting and, if it was work, they’d be able to see if I was telling the truth or not?’

  ‘If it was your work either they would have had to have installed it on your phone before they gave it to you, or someone would have needed access to your mobile. Then they could have sent the link to your phone and agreed to it for you. Then the programme would just download.’

  ‘How long would that take to do?’

  ‘About five minutes.’

  And that’s when the penny drops. Well, it doesn’t so much drop, it slices through the top of my head as if someone has deliberately let go of it from the top of a tall building.

  ‘So whoever did this,’ I try to keep my hands steady, ‘knows that I’m in Brighton and they know what street we live on – and,’ I peer at the phone, ‘almost exactly where on the street we live?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I hand it back to him quickly. ‘Delete it, please.’

  He presses a few buttons. ‘It’s gone. What are you going to do about this?’ he looks at me worriedly. ‘Are you going to ring one of your colleagues? Find out if they’ve got it on their phone too?’

  ‘I don’t think I should do anything rash,’ I take the phone back. ‘I don’t want to stir up some sort of storm, not the way things are at work at the moment. I didn’t even know this sort of thing was possible.’

  ‘It’s not designed for snooping,’ Dan says. ‘It’s supposed to be a social networking thing, for fun.’

  ‘Fun?’ I exclaim incredulously. ‘It’s outrageous!’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says quietly. ‘It is.’

  ‘Well, they can’t see me now,’ and I turn the phone off quickly, before Leo realises I’ve vanished off his nasty little map, and texts or calls.

  My mind is still turning over furiously by the time Dan turns the lights off and murmurs drowsily ‘try and forget about it, get some sleep. We’ll sort it in the morning.’

  I just lie there piecing it all together as I listen to Dan’s breathing begin to slow restfully. Leo had plenty of time with my mobile in that hotel room while I was passed out on the bed – and my laptop was in there too. I didn’t just bump into him in the street in London, he’d known what street I’d be on. That time he just happened to ‘randomly’ be in Brighton – it must have been because he knew I was there. He almost certainly knows where I live.