Page 72 of The Lucky Escape

Mum took a massive breath as she considered how to proceed. She settled on: ‘Patrick, I’m sure you’re a very nice man. But my daughter was engaged to somebody else little over a month ago, and hasn’t had a moment to herself to grieve it all. I’m sure it’s been a wonderful holiday, but I’d be silly to play along with all of this. Have you even thought about where you’re going to live, Annie?’

‘I’ve told her she’s always welcome at mine until she figures it out,’ Patrick offered, and I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I cringed as he said it.

‘Well isn’t that the icing on the cake,’ Mum commented. I didn’t know what to tell her.

We ate quietly after that. I issued a shake of the head to Patrick, letting him know not to push it. As we finished up finally I said, ‘The trip was beautiful, anyway, Mum. And not that anyone has asked but it really helped to put fifteen thousand miles between me and what happened that day. I’m doing fine. I don’t need your permission for moving on. It was naïve of me to think you’d be happy for me. For us.’

Mum stood up to clear the plates. It was remarkable how she could continue to conduct the normal steps of a family meal whilst being so unkind. ‘Just have a little dignity, please,’ she said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means, Annie, that you just got jilted and already you’vegot yourself a new boyfriend. What do you think people will say about that?’

‘How about,’ I levelled, my face flushing and voice rising, ‘I don’t care? How about I don’t give two hoots what people will say about anything, because I’ve spent my whole life caring and it’s made me miserable?’ I warmed up to my theme, words tumbling out and crashing into each other. ‘What if, actually, nobody is even talking about me anyway because everyone is so concerned with their own lives and their own mistakes? Their own worries? Fuck-ups? What if we all only get one precious life and if we spend it peering through the lace curtains at how everyone else lives we end up missing the chance to make the most of our own?’

Mum said quietly: ‘I don’t want to fight. All I’m asking is that you give this a bit more thought. Okay? Do you really want to leap out of one relationship and into another?’

I half expected Dad to tell her off but he didn’t, he just stared at the table, shaking his head, refusing to get involved any further. Mum took the empty bowls to the kitchen, and Freddie grinned at me across the table, loving how I’d finally given Mum a piece of my mind.

‘Told you you’re the best grown-up I know,’ she said.

‘You’re the best grown-up I know, too,’ Patrick agreed, quietly, squeezing my knee.

Dad reached for the water jug. ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said.

We left not long after.

35

Patrick’s voice roused me from a sleep so deep it was like coming around from a coma.

‘Annie,’ he muttered through the darkness of the room. ‘Annie, can you hear that?’

Kezza had told me that jet lag can take weeks to leave your system, and apparently she was right. It was like being shouted at down the length of a blacked-out cave.

‘Annie.’

I reluctantly rolled over so my face was towards his.

‘I’m awake,’ I said, groggily, reaching out to feel him. It was pitch-black, so must have been about 3 a.m., and wind blustered outside, making me feel cold even under the warmth of the padded duvet.

‘Listen,’ he replied.

I didn’t hear anything. And then there was a loud bang from downstairs. It immediately made me two hundred per cent more alert.

‘Burglar?’ I asked, quietly. I reached out for my phone, but it wasn’t upstairs with me. I hardly needed my iPhone in bedwhen I had Patrick. I could see it in my mind’s eye, downstairs in the bag I’d dropped in the hallway when he’d pushed me up against the wall after we got home, slipping an icy hand underneath my jumper and pawing at my bra ‘for warmth’. I loved how he wanted me, and how I wanted him. I adored closing the door on the world and being back in our own little bubble, where it was just us two.

The noise came again. If it was a burglar, it wasn’t a very masterful one.

‘I think it’s somebody at the door,’ Patrick said, and my instinct prickled, thinking it was Dad and there was something wrong with Freddie, or that it was Mum and there was something wrong with Dad.

‘Urgh,’ I grumbled, clambering out of bed into the cold, predawn, air. ‘Stay here,’ I insisted. ‘If it’s a burglar, I’ll scream and that’s your cue. No point both of us getting cold.’

I slid the dimmer switch of the lamp up so I could see just enough to let my eyes get used to being open. My slippers were by the door, and luckily so was my big fluffy dressing gown, which was a relief because I’d already got goose bumps. I headed downstairs, Carol at my heel, listening out for noises again. Then I heard it: somebody saying my name. A man, from the other side of the front door. Carol started to grumble, but she didn’t bark. Whoever was out there, she knew them. She cooed like a newborn baby.

‘Alexander?’ I asked, opening the door as rain spat against the windows at a hostile, angry angle. ‘What the hell?’

‘Annie,’ he replied, as if he was shocked to see me, like it wasn’t my door he’d been banging on in the middle of the night.

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