standing guard at periodic intervals either side. The paving stones were uneven, and most people had some kind of hedgerow built up at the front to discourage intruders or busybodies. Alex took all this in, all those places to hide, all those places she might be. Surely she was close. He looked around wildly for anything that might betray where she was, but it was quiet. He was about to shout her name, when he heard a woman’s voice.
‘Are you okay?’
It was Esther, from the house opposite. On her way to collect her son from nursery. Wrapped up for the weather, in long coat and gloves, and doing a swift appraising top-to-toe of him, her face clouding with worry as she did so.
Alex gulped back the cry in his throat, and ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to intimate some level of composure. But he couldn’t. ‘Did you see a woman, just now, in the street?’ he jabbered. ‘Wearing boots, suede boots?’
He could see Esther trying not to look disturbed at this strange question. She and Chloe were quite friendly when they saw one another, and she was obviously mentally computing that he wasn’t referring to his wife.
‘I didn’t, I’m sorry,’ she said politely, but with a little more restraint in her voice. She looked unsure of him now. ‘Sorry, Alex,’ she said, moving to her car. ‘I’ve got to dash, Nathan will be waiting.’
‘No problem,’ he replied, trying to smile normally but feeling his face crease up oddly. Esther gave him a quick, tight smile back, confirming to him that he was looking more like a lunatic than a friendly neighbour, and got in the car, firing the engine quickly and waving without looking as she drove down the street.
Once she was gone he took a few more glances left and right. Nothing.
‘FOR GOD’S SAKE,’ he bellowed, not giving a shit any more if the whole neighbourhood decided to watch. ‘COME OUT IF YOU’RE THERE. PLEASE!’
Silence. The only things moving in the street were flimsy branches on the skeletal trees.
She had been so close for a few moments, and now she was gone again, and for how long he didn’t know. Maybe forever.
As he trudged back inside, frustration making his head throb, he heard his phone ringing downstairs. He reached it just in time to see ‘Chloe’ on the small screen, and was frozen in indecision until it went silent.
21
Chloe made her way hurriedly to Bar 38, thanking god that she was meeting her cousin for lunch. In her opinion Mikaela was capable of lightening the foulest mood, though not many of her relatives would have said the same. It was well known that, in the family, Mikaela could be found under any of the more downbeat euphemisms – she was everything from the problem middle child to the black sheep of the family to the skeleton in the closet – although they all had great trouble actually keeping her in the proverbial closet as Mikaela tended to spring out over and over again like a demented jack-in-the-box.
At the doorway to the pub, her mobile rang. It was her mother, who barked, ‘Have you told him yet?’ and was outraged when Chloe said no. Chloe was sure this meant that Margaret had either phoned the entire gardening club already and was now waiting for her daughter to get her act together so Margaret wouldn’t look bad, or that she was suffering great pains in keeping the confidence. She was fervently wishing she hadn’t let her mother in on such a precious secret.
When she had finished the call, she walked through the door and spotted Mikaela as her cousin rose with an excited wave and gestured to two goblet-sized wines already waiting on the table. They made small talk for a while. Chloe was enjoying the ease of female company: seeing her friends seemed to have become a frustratingly rare thing since her mother had begun competing with her job for her spare time.
‘Okay, spill the beans,’ Mikaela said suddenly, startling Chloe from her reverie.
‘What? There are no beans.’
‘Of course there are. You look like you’ve got something you’re dying to tell me.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The way you’re acting, like, all quiet and brooding. I know you of old, Chlo. Spit it out.’
‘Well,’ she hesitated for just a second, then to her chagrin found herself blurting, ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘What?’ Mikaela looked gobsmacked. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Chloe attempted a feeble smile. It didn’t quite work.
‘So, you’ve got a great job, you’re happily married, and you’re having a baby. Is that why you’re looking so miserable?’ Mikaela put a hand on Chloe’s arm and stroked it softly. ‘C’mon, Chloe, aren’t you pleased?’
Chloe was taken aback by the way her life had just been described to her, as though it were some textbook example of how to move steadily through adulthood. ‘Of course I am,’ she said, somewhat defensively, ‘it’s just… oh, god, it’s just I can’t believe I’m telling you before I’ve even told the father.’
Mikaela’s grip tightened on her arm and she leaned forward. ‘Why? Who’s the father?’
‘What? Mikaela! It’s Alex, of course.’
‘Oh.’ Mikaela looked a bit disappointed. ‘Okay, why haven’t you told Alex?’
‘It’s… complicated.’ Chloe began to fill Mikaela in on the scene in the restaurant the week before, Julia there looking gorgeous, and Alex’s strange behaviour since.
When she paused, Mikaela sat back looking thoughtful. ‘Hmmm. Well, it’s always the quiet ones.’
Chloe was rapidly wishing she’d never started this. Mikaela was anything but reassuring. ‘
‘What? Of course he is, Chloe. He’s not silent-quiet, but you couldn’t get much more reserved and brooding – in that mysterious, sexy way he’s got. Like, like… Mr Darcy!’
Chloe was stunned. She’d never seen Alex as approaching anything Mr-Darcyish by nature. He wasn’t a chatterbox, but…
How many people thought like this? She felt giddy, and put down her wineglass. How many people had an entirely different perspective of her own husband? And – most importantly – who the hell was right?
‘What do you think I should do?’ she asked.
‘You’re asking me…!’ Mikaela began. ‘Haven’t you noticed I never get past the third date?’
‘Well, perhaps you should wait longer before putting out,’ Chloe retorted, before biting her lip, but Mikaela just laughed. Then, seeing her cousin sitting there looking crestfallen, Mikaela rubbed her finger against her chin while she thought.
Finally, she leaned in and said, ‘Don’t take it from him, hon. Demand to know what’s going on. And, for god’s sake, tell him you’re pregnant. Then he’ll have to treat you right – nothing like a bun in the oven to be able to add in some emotional blackmail.’
‘I don’t want to have to “blackmail” him to get him to do the right thing, Mik,’ Chloe snapped, then added, ‘but you’re right, we need to have it out.’ She sighed. ‘I just want things to get back to normal.’
‘I know you do, babe.’
Chloe had had enough of this discussion; it was making everything seem worse. Her mind searched for a new topic to cause a diversion, and came up trumps. ‘Have you spoken to your mum yet?’ Mikaela and her family had been on difficult terms since Mikaela had discussed some of the wilder aspects of her sex life on a late-night television show.
‘Nope.’ Mikaela knocked back the last of her wine. ‘Waiting for her now.’
‘Mik, she doesn’t even know where you are.’
‘I know, I know. But I’ll leave it a while longer, I think.’
‘Mik -’
Mikaela held up her hand. The devilish glint in her eyes was extinguished for a moment, and Chloe realised that her cousin looked tired.
‘Things can’t always go back, Chlo. However much you want them to. You have to work with where you are right now, and go forward. Wishing things could be what they once were just sends you dotty, believe you me.’
