Page 20 of Where Do We Go From Here?
‘So, can I come? Because I still need to buy a train ticket to the airport. The flight’s already booked – as you know – silly me! And I honestly do think we’d have fun. But if you really don’t want me there then I’m obviously not gonna force?—’
‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘It’s fine. Come!’ Evenas she’s saying it, she’s not quite sure why. It’s the result of a sort of ‘oh sod it’ instinct. Something about bowing to the inevitability of Jill’s visit. And perhaps it’s better to get it over with so she’ll have a proper long block of time to think about her life once Jill has gone.
‘Brilliant,’ Jill says. ‘I’ll book the train, then. It’ll probably cost more than the flight! When I get there, do I get a taxi, or…?’
Wendy laughs. ‘I’m in the middle of nowhere,’ she says. ‘I hope you’re not going to be disappointed.’
‘Not if you’re there, I won’t,’ Jill says sweetly.
‘And, yes, I’ll pick you up from the airport. What time do you get in?’
‘Just after three,’ Jill says. ‘Three in the afternoon.’
‘Well, that’s easy. A very respectable hour.’
‘Yeah… you’re not gonna like the flight back so much,’ Jill says. ‘It’s six in the morning. So I probably need to be there at four or something.’
‘Ouch!’ Wendy says.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine. We’ll just have to be sensible the night before.’
Jill laughs. ‘Like that’s gonna happen!’
The next morning, she wakes up early, well before the sun has risen above the hills.
She lies in bed, slowly coming to, and as she does so she realises she’s feeling down. She has no idea why – it’s perhaps simply the way some days are. Maybe it depends on what she’s been dreaming – where, in her mind, she has spent the night. She tries for a moment to remember, but draws a blank.
She lingers in bed for half an hour, at first trying to tune in to the voice inside her head to find out why she’s feelingso blue, and then once she’s identified the culprit, trying to tune it back out.
Because what the voice is saying, this morning, is that this whole adventure is doomed, that it’s nothing more, nothing less, than a waste of time, money and energy.
Maybe I should pack up and go home. Maybe I should just kill myself! That would show them, wouldn’t it?
Eek!she thinks.Where did that one come from?
If thoughts like that are going to bubble up maybe it’s a good job Jill’s coming after all.
Still troubled, she pulls on a dressing gown and descends the stairs, then adds wood to the burner and opens the slats. This is starting to feel like a morning ritual – starting to feel like the normal way one starts a day. The sensation of following a routine is reassuring.
She makes a pot of coffee and sits staring out at the colourless landscape waiting for the sunrise to light everything up.
She sips her coffee and thinks about her conflicting thoughts. Stay. Go home. She refuses to reconsider the other one.
She imagines returning home to reclaim her family. Because she really could do that, couldn’t she? She could pack her bags right now, drive to the airport and buy an overpriced ticket to fly today. She imagines Harry finding her on the sofa. She imagines the look of surprise on his face. That would be a thing to see!
But what if she arrives to find a mystery woman has replaced her?
A mystery woman.There! That horrific thought is out in the open.
It’s not the first time she has imagined Harry might be having an affair, but itisthe first time she has really let her mind go there since she got to France – since she left Harry alone, for months on end, to get up to whatever the hell he wants.
So might she really get home to find anotherwoman in their bed? And if she did, would Wendy even have the gumption to tell her to leave?
Perhaps moving out is where she went wrong. Because though her reasons were good ones – because she really was protecting her family by doing so – she can’t help but feel that it was that specific gesture that, ironically, made them think she didn’t care.
If a new woman really is there, then Wendy’s moving out would definitely be the act that created a vacancy.
