Tears ran down Olivia’s cheeks and she nodded as she took a shuddering breath, not trusting herself to speak without breaking down into sobs. Tina returned her affection with a tight hug and then stepped back as the kettle began to whistle. “Now enough of this nonsense,” she said briskly. “I’m not dead yet, so there’s no need to talk in epitaphs. Why don’t you ring Simon and we’ll play a hand of bridge?”
Simon didn’t pick up, however, and so they played with just the two of them, before Olivia headed back to Wychwood as dusk settled over the fields. She hadn’t seen Simon for two days, which really wasn’t that much, but she was starting to feel the teensiest bit nervous about his radio silence. It was by far the longest they’d gone without talking in admittedly, only ten days. But it had been an amazing, intense ten days.
On Boxing Day they’d had leftovers for lunch and gone for a lovely, long walk through snowy fields along the Lea, and then come back and watched all the special Christmas season telly.
Then yesterday he’d said he needed to organise his new home, and since the subtext seemed to be he was too busy to spend time with her, Olivia let it be. They didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets, after all. These last days had been magical, but Olivia was sensible enough—or so she told herself—to accept that they hadn’t been actual reality. Real life had to intrude at some point, and so now it was. They’d learn to live in the real world, not some snowy, Christmassy idyll.
Still, as she arrived back at Tea on the Lea, Dr Jekyll meowing resentfully at being left alone for so long, she wondered again at Simon’s uncharacteristic silence. He hadn’t replied to any of her three texts, or answered her two calls. She was reluctant to text or call yet again, and clutter up his phone with her clinginess. Perhaps he’d lost his mobile…but then wouldn’t he have let her know? He’d known she was taking her mum to the doctor’s today. They’d made plans to be together afterwards, and he’d acknowledged how she might be a bit shaky. So where was he now?
Restless, Olivia fed Dr Jekyll and made herself a mug of soup, pacing the flat as she sipped it and trying not to feel anxious. A few unanswered texts were hardly the end of the world, and Simon could have any number of reasons not to respond: a family emergency…a lost phone…or perhaps he was just tired, and he’d had a nap all afternoon. Or maybe he was busy with DIY stuff, and hadn’t had a chance to look at his phone. She was being ridiculous. Of course she was.
But when he hadn’t called by ten o’clock that night, Olivia started to feel properly frightened. What if he’d had a fall, alone in number four? What if he was lying at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg? She tortured herself with various scenarios before she threw on her parka and boots and headed outside. The night was black and starless, the pavements icy, the air sharp and cold, as she headed down the deserted high street towards Willoughby Manor.
She was probably overreacting hugely, and Simon might start to wonder if she was some kind of sick bunny boiler, going out to check on him late at night, peering in his windows. In fact, Olivia nearly turned around at the thought—what on earth was she doing?
But then she thought of Simon lying on the floor, bloody and unconscious, and she kept walking.
Willoughby Close looked empty and forlorn as she came into the courtyard. Simon’s car wasn’t parked there, which surprised her. Where was he, if not at home? She peeked in the windows but the curtains were drawn and she couldn’t see anything. After a few indecisive moments she crept away, and spent a restless night wondering where he was and what he was doing, trying not to feed her ever-growing fear that something was wrong.
When her phone pinged early the next morning Olivia scrabbled on her bedside table for it, only to sigh in disappointment when she saw it was Alice, asking her if she and Simon wanted to come over for drinks on New Year’s Eve. Since she wasn’t sure where Simon was and was starting to doubt the nature of their relationship, she decided to answer it later.
After a restorative shower and a large cup of coffee, Olivia was starting to feel more like herself. Simon would almost certainly get in touch today, with a completely reasonable explanation, and she would laugh at her paranoia and never, ever tell him how freaked out she’d become.
She spent the morning tidying the flat and then taking down the Christmas decorations in the shop, getting everything ready for a reopen on January second. She made a shopping list to restock, and fiddled around with some new recipes…checking her phone every few minutes all the while.
In the afternoon she drove into Witney to check on her mum, and they went for a walk around town before having tea at a cute little shop in the Woolgate Centre. When she got back home in the early evening, Simon still hadn’t been in touch and she was starting to panic properly, forgetting all the resolutions she’d made about keeping her cool.
Something had to be wrong. He wouldn’t just go quiet on her like this, not without sending a single text. That wasn’t like him at all, and yet Olivia was forced to acknowledge that she had only
