What the hell, Pete? Is this a joke? It’s not funny.
She pressed send and waited for the two ticks to appear, indicating that her message had been received. But seconds turned into minutes and there was no sign of them. He must have turned WhatsApp off. She immediately threw all caution to the wind and called him, something she had never done before. She was relieved when it rang, a chance to talk to him, but the feeling quickly drained away from her as the phone continued to ring, unanswered, before going to voicemail. She immediately hit redial but the same thing happened.
‘Shit,’ she said aloud. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ She looked at the time. If she didn’t head to the Eurostar terminal now she was going to miss her train. She had to make her mind up and it had to be now. She threw some coins on the table for the waitress, stood up and walked towards the terminal.
She made it on to the train by the skin of her teeth. She stowed her bags, took off her coat and sat on one of the two seats that she had reserved. Looking at the empty one next to her she felt both enraged and defeated. How could he have done this to her? How could she have been so stupid as to let him do this to her? She’d thought he was this amazing man, that she’d finally met someone special but he was a coward just like the rest of them. Full of bullshit. And now here she was, completely alone, on the fast train to a new life that she didn’t know if she wanted to live on her own.
She thought of her dad’s house and all the work that was needed to make it liveable in. Could she do it by herself? Could she really live there all alone and start a business? Money wasn’t a problem, she had enough in savings from her parents, but would she go mad on her own out there in rural France?
How dare Pete betray her like this! How dare he! He’d had ample opportunity to change his mind before it was too late, why wait until now? God, she was angry. She picked up her phone and tried to call him again. It went unanswered. She tried three more times, not even caring if Kate answered anymore, but it continued to ring out.
She went on to Facebook and looked for his profile. They weren’t friends but she knew he had one from when she’d done the usual online stalking of him when they first started hooking up. But it wasn’t there anymore, he must have deleted it. She tried Twitter and LinkedIn but there was nothing there either. She didn’t have his personal email address and his work emails were probably being forwarded now. She had no other way of contacting him. Bastard! Bastard, bastard, bastard!
Would he change his mind, she wondered? Would he call her in the next few days and tell her he’d made a massive mistake and that he was on the way? She allowed herself to hope for a minute, visibly sitting up in her seat at the thought before sinking back down into it. When a married man says they’re not coming, they’re not coming. It was over.
Her dream had burst as easily as a flimsy balloon at a child’s birthday party. She thought about her friends in London. They had known she had a boyfriend and that she was moving to France with him but they didn’t know he was married. She wasn’t one of those girls who had a tight-knit group of gal pals who gossiped and told each other everything. She preferred to keep her personal life to herself. She’d had a leaving dinner with them a few days ago, they had hugged her, given her presents and told her to keep in touch. The gap she’d left behind would soon be filled by something else as they got on with their lives. They would forget about her and London would forget about her. She felt instinctively that she couldn’t go back. She could only go forward.
So France then, or somewhere else? The world was her oyster and the thought filled her with hope all of a sudden. She had no ties, no family, money in the bank, she could literally go wherever she wanted, do whatever she wanted. She would go to Paris, regroup, consider her options and then make a decision.
Screw Pete and his unhappy marriage that he had just committed himself to for the rest of his life. He would regret this in the years to come, he would remember this as the moment that could have changed his life forever, and he was too chickenshit to go for it. He’s the loser, not me. And clinging on to that thought, she looked out of the window as London and the UK sped away from her.
23
Pete
Today was the day he was leaving his wife. His passport was burning a hole in his jacket pocket and his holdall, which he’d hastily packed while Kate was in the bath the previous evening, was waiting in the wardrobe. He woke up with a sense of both dread and excitement. He’d tossed and turned for much of the night before eventually falling into a fitful sleep, plagued by a strange dream in which he was walking through Covent Garden naked while everyone stared at him and Kate and Claire looked on, eating croissants together and laughing at him.
When he woke up, he almost wanted to tell Kate about it: she loved a good dream analysis and would probably be able to tell him what it meant but of course he couldn’t breathe a word. This realisation almost made him feel wistful, like he had already lost her even though he was lying only a few inches away from her.
A few minutes
