Page 100 of Lessons in Life

‘Mr Donoghue,’ I called. ‘I have to dash, but I know Blane here would like a chat with you.’

‘No, I bloody wouldn’t,’ Blane scoffed, scowling in my direction. ‘I come to see you, miss, not him.’ And with that he sauntered, actuallysauntered, past Mason, who was smiling and beckoning him into his study.

I dithered, recognising I needed to update Mason about Blane, but also knowing what the motorway to Leeds was like at this time of day. I turned back, spending just five minutes apprising Mason of Blane’s current situation, before heading for my car once more.

* * *

The M62 into Leeds was thronged even at 4.30p.m. and I had to keep glancing at my phone on the passenger seat, worried that Fabian might already have left work and be speeding down the opposite carriageway back towards Beddingfield. If I’d had time I would have gone home first, put on my favourite red sweater and jeans instead of my usual teacher’s skirt and shirt, and redone my make-up before setting off again. But the late-January sun was already going down on a clear ice-blue and fiery horizon, heralding another cold and frosty evening ahead, and I didn’t want to miss him. I wanted Fabian and me on neutral ground: somewhere one of us couldn’t flounce off to another room, where I couldn’t drink too much wine, which could make me garrulous, prone to talking over him, desperate to put my point of view.

I kept an eye on the westbound carriageway for Fabian’s silver Porsche, but when I had to brake suddenly, I realised I needed to concentrate on the road ahead. It took me twenty minutes to get to the NCP car park on Albion Street where I always left my car when in Leeds.

Stopping only to reach into the back seat for the lovely camel cashmere trench coat Fabian had bought me for Christmas, I quickly refreshed lipstick, eye liner and perfume and pulled a hand through my unruly mass of curls. I headed to the exit, pulling up the coat’s collar and tying its belt securely against the cold, before heading for the Trinity Centre and The Alchemist on the second floor. I decided to ring him as I walked to make sure he actually was in Leeds. Impulsive again, Robyn, I chastised myself. Why the hell hadn’t I just gone back to the cottage, made Fabian’s favourite fish pie and opened a bottle of wine in readiness for him coming home? We could have talked in the relaxing warmth of the log burner and I could have apologised for my immature reaction to being unexpectedly faced with Fabian’s ex in a family reunion. A meeting which, to be fair to me, had been cooked up by Gillian and Julius Carrington with the sole aim of making me look silly and out of place.

Instead, I had stopped, phone clamped to my ear, and was being subjected to impatient tutting as I blocked the way of last-minute shoppers and early-evening restaurant-goers while I endeavoured to work out just where Fabian was.

I’d googled the firm of solicitors Sorrel had told me was dealing with Joel’s case and where Alexandra Brookfield and Fabian were presumably now working together. Without an office of his own, he’d taken over the spare bedroom in the cottage and, as the atmosphere offroideurhad continued between the pair of us, he’d increasingly escaped in there, working until the early hours of the morning, coming to bed only when I was fast asleep.

Boris! He must have Boris with him. How on earth could he meet me in a bar in this busy city centre when he had Boris with him? God, I was even more of a bloody idiot than I thought. The coolly elegant, clever and beautiful Alexandra, who presumably made calm and collected decisions on a daily basis, must be looking a decidedly better alternative to this impulsive teacher in her scruffy, muddy boots – I’d taken a shortcut over what was left of St Mede’s playing fields – being buffeted by Leeds shoppers.

No answer from Fabian – the call went to voicemail – so I left a message. Then remembered I’d earlier texted him about meeting in The Alchemist, so had to ring him back, leave another message and tell him I was heading for The Alchemist just in case, despite having Boris with him, he was possibly on his way to meet me.

The Alchemist had huge windows looking out onto a roof terrace lit by pretty fairy lights, but I wanted cosy warmth and was given a table inside where I ordered a single gin and tonic. It was good to sit down – I’d taught several dance and drama sessions that Friday, and had run aGreaserehearsal in my double free period as well as getting Sorrel up to speed for her audition. She would be fabulous. She was back to her old self: sparkling, full of zest, putting 100 per cent effort into her pieces and I could think of no reason why she wouldn’t make the London school’s highly competitive grade.

The gin was soothing and I closed my eyes for a few seconds before turning to retrieve my bag, reaching for my phone once more. I froze, mid turn, my eyes caught by a couple standing from where they’d previously been sitting at a table just the other side of the huge glass door.

There was no mistaking the tall, dark-haired, wonderfully attractive man who was being embraced by the beautiful blonde, her hand possessively on his arm as she leant in to kiss him before bending to fondle the dog’s ears seated at the man’s feet.

I turned away, not wanting them to catch me gawping. Pulse racing, I didn’t know what to do. Did I skip gaily over, shouting: ‘Surprise, surprise! Mine’s a double gin?’ Walk coolly between them with a ‘Well, how lovely! Fancy seeing you two here!’ Or did I race round and through the glass door, saying, ‘Mine, I think,’ before grabbing Fabian by the scruff of the neck, taking hold of Boris and pouring my gin over Alexandra?

Before I could get either my brain or my legs into gear, man, woman and dog were walking to the main exit leading out onto the corridor and lift back down to the shopping area. I jumped up, grabbed my coat and pulled up its collar, determined to follow them. But at the door, the bartender shouted me back.

‘Would you like to settle your bill, love?’

By the time I’d scrabbled for my phone, paid for my unfinished gin and left the bar, the lift had already descended, and a posse of fifteen or so pink-and-silver cowboy-hatted women, clamouring loudly – and drunkenly – for its return, was blocking my way.

32

OK, so if Fabian had fallen back in love with the gorgeous Alexandra, then there was little I or anyone else could do about it. How could I blame him? He’d been with her for years; she’d given up on him and now she wanted him back, even following him up to Yorkshire to achieve that. How could I blameher? I’d seen enough of the pair of them, back in The Alchemist, Alexandra draped possessively all over Fabian, to know when I was beaten. Between Gillian and Julius Carrington, and now Alexandra Brookfield, I needed to come out waving my white flag.

I surrender.

The Friday shopping crowd had thinned, but the evening revellers were out in force, already seated and drinking underneath the ridiculously large gas patio heaters outside RestaurantBar and Grilland Banyan in City Square. The huge equestrian statue of Edward, the Black Prince, gazed down stonily as I crossed over the road in front of him, making my way back to the NCP car park.

‘You been dumped as well?’ I asked, glancing up at Edward.

He didn’t reply but a grizzled street sleeper, bedding down for the night in his sleeping bag and cardboard, shouted back at me: ‘I ’ave that, love!’

I found a fiver in my pocket and handed it over to him. ‘Sorry, I can’t do more just at the moment.’ I realised I was crying.

‘D’you want to join me in ’ere, love?’ he asked, revealing brown stumps instead of teeth and opening his sleeping bag in invitation. ‘Come on, have a wee drink wi’ me and wipe them tears off.’ He proffered a can of cider in my direction.

‘Come on, Robyn,’ I censured myself. ‘Get yourself home.’

I realised, in my misery at seeing Fabian with Alexandra, I’d come out of Trinity the wrong exit and now had to walk back up to the car park on Albion Street via Park Row and Bond Street.

Get yourself home? Back home where? To the Dower Cottage? Without Fabian? He’d be off back to Harrogate – or was it Ilkley? – now Alexandra had reclaimed him. Eventually, presumably, back to London with her.

Oh, and poor Jess! She’d been utterly sold on the idea of her and Fabian turning the white house into a top restaurant.

---