‘She came just as I was going on maternity leave,’ says Lauren, covering her face with a towel as she dries her hair. It’s easier to lie when he can’t see her eyes.
‘Did she come to your leaving drinks?’
Lauren does a quick mental scan of all the midwives sat around the table at the pub. They’re all women Simon would know, and the two he didn’t, he made a point of talking to when he came to pick her up, an hour early.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says warily.
‘Well maybe you need to let whoever needs to know that you’re not looking for any extra shifts. I’ll do it.’ He starts to thumb instructions on the screen and Lauren makes a grab for it.
‘Woah,’ says Simon, pulling it away and holding it up in the air, out of her reach. ‘What are you so tetchy about?’
She’s not, because she knows she’s deleted every single message that ‘Sheila’ has ever sent, and all of her replies. But there’s still that niggle, no matter how tiny, that she hasn’t, and the thought of Simon seeing it sends her off-kilter. She gets hotter and hotter as she runs through their most recent communication in her head:
Sheila: I need to see you
Lauren: I may be able to do Thursday night
Sheila: Seriously?
Lauren: Maybe. I’m not sure yet
Sheila: I can’t stop thinking about you
Lauren: I’ll let you know
Sheila: Don’t make me wait too long
No matter how she comes at it, whichever way she plays it out in her head, there’s no way that she could ever make it sound like an innocent conversation between two colleagues. She knows that it’s not on there, but the thought of it keeps her reaching up for her phone.
‘Give it to me,’ she says, making a grab for it.
‘Me thinks she doth protest too much,’ says Simon, lowering it to read whilst holding Lauren firmly at arm’s length. ‘What’s on here that you’re so worried about?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, as she stops fighting for it, knowing that it’s only piquing his interest. ‘It’s my phone, my property.’
‘Well, actually I’m currently paying for it, so that’s not strictly true.’
God, how she hated having to be indebted to him. The sooner she gets back to work, the better.
‘So is there anything on here that shouldn’t be?’ He waggles the phone within her reach but she forces herself not to react.
‘No,’ she says, wrapping a towel around her and walking out onto the landing. She snags her toe on an exposed floorboard, and yelps, knowing it’ll be another splinter. All Simon needs to do is lay the carpet that’s been rolled up and standing in the corner for the past six months. But now is not the time to ask again. Maybe she’ll go and buy a remnant tomorrow, just to tide them over.
‘So you won’t mind me looking then?’ he says.
Her ears are burning. ‘Not at all.’
He follows her, humming as he thumbs through her contacts and messages, her hatred for him growing with every second. The phone pings, a sign of a text coming in, and her bladder feels like it might give way. He raises his eyebrows as he reads it. ‘Interesting,’ he says.
Every fibre in her body is on high alert, as she imagines what it might say. Has Justin chosen this time to declare his undying love for her? Or has he been unusually intimate; writing in fine detail what he’d like to do to her? Lauren shudders at the thought, more out of fear than desire.
Simon’s eyes are boring into her, but she will not give him the satisfaction of knowing how intimidated she feels. She will not ask who the text is from or what it says.
‘Arrived safely in Birmingham,’ relays Simon. ‘Thanks for today. Hope you got home okay.’
Lauren feels like she might cry with relief, but any respite is short-lived as her mind jumps to the very next problem of having to explain where she’s been all day.
‘Got home okay?’ questions Simon. ‘Where have you been?’
Lauren had hoped to avoid this conversation, not least because she didn’t want to have to explain herself or justify her actions. Though she’d allowed for the possibility that Noah would tell his dad about the trains he’d been on, as he’d spent most of the journey pretending to be the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.
‘Jess and I took the kids out for the day,’ she says.
‘Where to?’ asks Simon.
‘Harrogate – to show her where I grew up.’ She bends the truth because it’s easier. Because it means fewer questions, and that makes her life less stressful. ‘You know how Noah is with trains,’ she goes on with a forced smile. ‘He loved it.’
Simon shrugs his shoulders and begrudgingly hands her phone back. ‘You do realize that if you’re doing anything you shouldn’t, I’ll find out about it.’
The threat weighs heavy on Lauren’s shoulders. If whatever this is between her and Justin carries on, she’s going to need a different plan going forward.
There is no going forward, she argues with herself. This needs to stop. Now!
But within seconds she’s conspiring with herself – if Simon’s out working tomorrow night, she could see Justin, even if it’s just to say goodbye. It’s not until her fantasy world collides with reality a few minutes later that she realizes that without a babysitter she’s not going anywhere.
‘I’ll see you later,’ calls out Simon as he goes down the stairs. She hadn’t even realized he was going out.
‘Bye then,’ she whispers as the front door slams so hard that it makes the whole house shudder.
She quickly scoops her hair up into a top knot and pulls on a T-shirt and leggings, desperate to get back to her phone.
Maybe, she texts ‘Sheila’.
Where? comes back the speedy response.
She doesn’t want to do what they did last time; hiding in dark corners, worrying about somebody seeing them.
Your place? she offers, before deleting it and tapping on the screen, deep in thought. What is
