Page 87 of Hot to Go

‘Oh, Charlie sent us pictures and updates and stuff.’ She turns and puts a thumb up, flashing an excited face to her brother who shakes his head.

‘I’m sorry about her. And this is Sam,’ Charlie explains. I wave to him in his hoodie and big jeans, watching as Charlie puts a reassuring hand to his shoulder. I try and tuck my hair around my ear to make myself look presentable, knowing the hours of travel are going to make me look frazzled but I’ll admit to feeling a bit emotional too. Charlie has shared so much of himself with me, he’s obviously hugely protective of his siblings and he just introduces them to me so casually. These are my people. Meet my people.

‘We’re going to Nando’s, you want to come with?’ Brooke asks.

‘Oh, I was going to get food with my…’ I explain, pointing to Beth.

‘You know what?’ Beth says quickly, ‘I just got a text from home and my husband’s said one of my little boys isn’t too well, so we will raincheck,’ she says, smiling. ‘Go get some chicken…’ she mumbles to me.

‘OK then…’ I announce.

Behind us the crowds of people move on, the coach drivercloses the doors and Lee puts his clipboard away in his bag, looking up to the sky and taking a deep breath. The trip is over. We are home.

‘Suzie?’

I don’t recognise the voice at first because I’ve not heard it for a really long time. Six months to be exact. The last time I heard this voice was in a voicemail telling me not to be such a bitch and pleading for me to come home. I can’t quite understand why that voice is here though. Why can I hear it now, in this very moment?

Paul?

I see him come around from the other side of the bus to approach us and a feeling of horror goes through me. I can’t seem to move but the sight of him seems to trigger Beth into action. ‘Whoa. No. What the hell are you doing here, Paul?’

He walks past Brooke and Sam who are watching him curiously and then stands there alongside Charlie, who’s grimacing, looking him up and down. I can’t quite cope at the hell and agony of this situation, frozen to the spot.

‘Beth is right. What are you doing here?’ I mumble quietly. Maybe he’s a hallucination. He looks no different to how I left him, all that time ago, in what seems like another life.

‘You’ve ignored all my texts and emails! You gave me no choice.’

‘How did you know I’d be here?’ I ask him weakly, trying to move him away from the action.

‘I asked around and made some phone calls. It’s not like you’re in witness protection.’ He laughs, but nobody else does. I feel Beth’s arm tighten around mine protectively. Seeing him next to Charlie is unbearably stressful, and the difference between them in every way possible shows me I was right to move on.

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I tell him.

‘Well, you have to…’ Paul continues, his expression furious.

I see Charlie’s back straighten at the change of tone.

‘I have to, do I?’ I retort.

‘Yeah, because you’re still my wife…’

Charlie

‘Oh my god, I’ve found it. It’s a group photo from about two years ago – that’s her wedding. She’s married, Charlie. She had a wedding. I like her dress…but this is not on. Did she really not tell you she was married? Sometimes I tell you stuff and you forget.’ Brooke does very angry laps around the kitchen while she’s on her phone, doing this deep dive into Suzie’s life, as we pick on chicken in our kitchen.

Paul. She’s married to a man named Paul. She never told me this. That’s stuff you remember. She didn’t wear a ring, she didn’t allude to it at all. I wish I’d got Brooke in to do a proper excavation of her social media before now, but this still feels like something she should have said. Something I would have liked to have known – especially in the wake of everything that’s happened.

‘Brooke, sometimes he forgets to buy your yoghurts,’ Sam explains. ‘That’s different.’

Brooke pulls a face and shows me her phone. It is indeed a picture on her cousin’s profile that shows a country house wedding from about two years ago. Suzie is at the forefront of that photo with a man who I now know to be called Paul, the bridesmaids are in sage. I feel an ache of anger to see the photo. I take another wing and stuff it in my mouth. I knew something was wrong the moment Paul came into view. I didn’t like the way he spoke to her or the panic and sadness in Suzie’s eyes to see him. But even worse was that feeling in the pit of my stomach that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be. If they’re still married, there’s obviously something there to resolve.And it all sounds recent. So much so that instead of staying in that awkward face-off trying to work out if I had any place there, Brooke, Sam and I made our excuses and came back here and got our chicken delivered. I barely remember the drive home. All I can see when I close my eyes is Suzie’s expression when we left. There was regret there, and a desperate silence where it was obvious she didn’t know what to say. If she had, I don’t think I was ready to hear it. So I walked away, listening to Beth’s voice ringing through the air telling Paul what she thought of him.

Brooke still scrolls through her phone, desperately searching for answers. ‘I think I’ve found Paul’s profile on LinkedIn. He wears old-man jumpers with his shirt and tie. You’re better looking than him and I know that’s weird because you’re my brother but if you wore jumpers like this I’d burn them. He’s a Blue Harbour wanker. I bet his mum still buys his pants for him and he only wears Nike trainers from Sports Direct that are under forty pounds.’

Sam laughs under his breath but he’s watching me at the same time, how I don’t react. I know it’s clear from my face my mind is elsewhere. I told her a lot on that holiday, I unpacked the two of them so she had full disclosure. I took her to one of my most favourite places in the world so she could share in that memory, to make space for us to start again, getting to know each other. But she didn’t tell me she was still married. I realise I don’t really know her at all.

‘He posted a story on his Instagram about two years ago about “love being like a mountain and that they’re only at the base of this momentous climb…”’ Seriously, I am retching. That’s the sort of man who likely has song lyrics tattooed on his arm thinking it’s poetry,’ Brooke says.

I love her loyalty. The way she will attack a man she didn’t even meet. She just glanced at him in a car park and he’s now her mortal enemy. She does it to make me feel better, I know,but I think I need a bit of calm right now, to not have the situation invade my headspace.

---