Something to Tell You

If the last few days had been a struggle for Robyn, the weekend seemed to move things up a gear, in terms of doom and despair. Usually weekends meant socializing, either with the rest of the Mortimers or, for the children, sporting fixtures or parties with school friends and other such fun stuff. Unfortunately, fun felt pretty low on the agenda for Robyn now – added to which, the calendar was unusually empty. It was almost the end of term – one week to go – and all the sports clubs had finished for the summer, so she didn’t even have the distraction of a cricket match for Sam, or a dance class for Daisy, to chip away the hours.

‘So, what are you going to do then?’ asked Alison after breakfast, sorting through her hairdressing kit on the kitchen table. She was going to have to leave in twenty minutes, she’d said, in order to work some magic on a bride’s hair over in Harrogate, and was paranoid about leaving any of her equipment behind. ‘Heated rollers,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Tongs. Grips. Vines . . . Daisy, have you been playing with my hair vines?’

It was childish of her, she knew, but Robyn couldn’t help feeling a bit peevish that her mum was leaving when she still felt so low, when the day stretched ahead with such empty desolation. ‘Dunno,’ she replied. Still in her pyjamas, she was fuggy and ripe, compared to her blow-dried, fully made-up mother, which made her feel even worse. ‘I haven’t got anything to do, either, seeing as the Mortimers are all cold-shouldering me,’ she said, noting, as she did so, how whiny she sounded, but unable to prevent herself from sliding into self-pity. ‘Can you believe, none of them have bothered getting in touch to see if I’m all right? I mean . . . They’ve totally closed ranks against me. It’s like they’ve rejected me overnight.’

‘Oh, Robyn, come on, now,’ Alison scolded, still rummaging through her kit. ‘Of course they haven’t. Give them a chance. Do they even know about—Ah, thank you!’ she said as Daisy appeared just then, rhinestones sparkling amidst her hair, thanks to all the beaded accessories she’d swiped from her grandma’s collection. ‘Little monkey,’ she said, wagging her finger, before unwinding them all again.

Robyn waited until her daughter had skipped away once more, before continuing with her moan. ‘And it’s Luke’s birthday next week – Paula’s eldest – and nobody’s mentioned any kind of celebratory party tea to me. I think I’ve just been uninvited. I’m totally off the guest list. Dropped like a hot brick!’

‘Robyn.’ Alison zipped up her bag and stood there, palms flat on the kitchen table, looking stern. ‘Listen to me. You can cope with this two ways: you can feel sorry for yourself, and blame other people and become all bitter and resentful—’

‘Or you can roll your sleeves up and get on with life. You can say: Okay, this bad thing has happened to me, but I’m not going to lie down in defeat. I’m not going to submit. I know it’s hard – believe me, I remember – but being on your own is not the end of the world. See it as an opportunity; a beginning, rather than an ending. Don’t forget, once the children know what has happened, they’ll be counting on you to get all three of you through this. So—’

‘All right! All right!’ Robyn cried, rolling her eyes. Don’t forget, indeed. Like she could just forget! When she was absolutely dreading having to tell Sam and Daisy about John! ‘No need to lecture me.’ Was her mother trying to make her feel worse than she already did?

‘Because when your dad died, I didn’t have a choice,’ Alison said, warming to her theme. ‘It was out of my control. Much as I wanted to give up and stay in bed crying for the rest of my life, I had to keep going for the sake of both of us. Whereas—’

‘Yes, but Dad couldn’t help dying,’ Robyn pointed out. ‘It wasn’t like he deliberately left you in the lurch, unlike John.’

Her mum stiffened for a moment, then she pursed her lips and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. ‘All I’m saying,’ she went on quietly, a wounded expression on her face, ‘is that you mustn’t give up. This is your chance to follow your own dreams again, to start thinking about the life you want, rather than living around your husband.’

Robyn had had enough of being lectured. An acrid coil of nastiness was untwisting inside her, putting words in her mouth. ‘Says you, who’s never dared do anything,’ she replied scornfully before she could stop herself. ‘Says you, who never goes out, who doesn’t have a life, who’s too scared to seek out any kind of relationship that doesn’t involve cutting someone’s hair and asking them about their holidays. What about your holidays, eh? What about your dreams? Don’t preach at me, when you’re too cowardly to do anything new!’

As soon as she had finished saying all of these terrible things, Robyn would have given anything to spool them back inside again. There was a dreadful shocked silence when Alison looked like she’d been slapped. She opened her mouth as if she was about to retaliate in defence, then clamped it shut again and wheeled round on the spot. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, in a tight voice that didn’t sound like her at all.

Robyn felt as if she might just have nominated herself as the worst daughter in the world. ‘Mum, I’m sorry,’ she started saying, following her from the room, as Alison walked briskly towards the front door. ‘I didn’t mean to – Mum!’

But Alison was already out of the house and marching up the path to her car, nose in the air. Robyn stood in the doorway, pulling her dressing gown around her, knowing that she’d been cruel, knowing that she’d been unfair. When her mum had been such a rock to her, as well; when she’d comforted and supported Robyn through the worst few days of her life. And this is how you thank me, Alison’s body language seemed to say, hurt and stiff, as she got into the car with a slam of the door, then reversed out of the drive. Why do I bother?

Robyn pushed the door closed with a soft click, feeling ashamed and guilty and mean. Catching sight of herself in the hall mirror – bed-hair all over the place, complexion sallow where she’d hardly left the house in the last twenty-four hours, a splotch of coffee on her pyjama top – her instinct was to turn away quickly, but she forced herself to look, to take it all in.

Okay, she thought, eyeing her reflection. This is as bad as it gets for you. This is as low as you’re going to sink. From now on, the only way is up. Starting with heading up those stairs and having a shower, you stinking old slattern. Then you can work out how you’re going to apologize.

‘You all right, Mum?’ There was Sam, looking over the banister at her. She hadn’t just said all that aloud, had she?

‘I’m fine, sweetheart,’ she assured him with a shaky smile. ‘I’m going to have a wash and get dressed, and then let’s think of something fun to do today, you, me and Daze, all right?’

‘There’s that new Marvel film out,’ he said immediately, brightening. ‘We could go and watch that together.’

‘With popcorn!’ added Daisy, appearing beside her brother with a hopeful look on her face. She had ears like a bat, particularly when it came to the matter of potential treats.

A film and popcorn, thought Robyn, trudging up the stairs towards them. Sitting in the darkness while superheroes slugged it out on a big screen, with explosions and special effects, and at least ninety minutes when she knew the children wouldn’t be asking difficult questions about when John was coming back. Surely even she could manage that. ‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ she replied, gratified to hear their cheers in response.

There. The day might be saved after all. And maybe she could pick up something nice for her mum in town too, by way of making amends. She wandered into the bathroom, feeling a tiny bit more positive about the world, just as Sam said, ‘Oh – wait, though.’

‘I just remembered: Dad said he wanted to see that film as well,’ he replied. ‘Should we wait until he’s back before we go?’

And there it was again, the rising tide of uncertainty that kept threatening to pull her under. She gritted her teeth, wondering how long she could keep fobbing them off with vague answers. ‘Let’s go and see the film anyway,’ she replied eventually, then turned back with another smile, hoping it wasn’t too obviously fake. ‘And then if he—When he’s back, if he still wants to see it, we can all go again!’

‘YES!’ cried Daisy, punching the air exuberantly, although Sam looked less convinced by her answer. He narrowed his eyes a little, looking straight at Robyn with a frown of doubt. He wasn’t buying it, she thought in panic. He knew something was going on. And sooner or later he was going to seek her out, alone, and ask some blunt questions, to which she’d have to provide some honest answers without completely breaking his heart.

But not right now. Not while she was unwashed and smarting, after the exchange with her mum, not when she hadn’t prepared how to tell him. She escaped into the bathroom and turned on the shower, knowing that it was only a matter of time.

Bunny had taken to looking at maps recently. Wales. Cornwall. The Highlands. She scrolled through them on her phone screen, zooming in to city centres and around towns, thinking: This one? Here? Maybe that one? while waiting for some impulse within her to ring like a struck bell. Hoping for a signal – a premonition, a good feeling, anything – that would guide her next move. She’d even considered London, with its warren of roads and districts and communities. Everyone could have a fresh start in London, right?

It wasn’t working out for her in York any more, that was for sure. Ever since the horrible, shouting man in Gloucestershire, she’d felt as if she was on borrowed time. She was hiding behind her lies, hiding behind Dave, using whatever she could find as a shield to protect herself. It made her think of history lessons at school: imagining wooden fortresses in old battles, the boom of gunpowder, the clamour of dying men. And there she was, crouching behind her increasingly flimsy shield, the hot, thick stink of sulphur and mud and metal in the air; too scared to let anyone see her real self.

With every day that passed, she felt as if the new life she’d built for herself here as Bunny was under threat of collapse. She’d begun eating sweets in secret, stashing bags of them in her knicker drawer or handbag. She’d bailed out of her last two gym sessions with excuses about coming down with a cold and feeling lethargic. And it was becoming harder to resist temptation, to walk past chip shops without diving in for a hot salty bagful, to stop herself hacking off great lumps of cheese to post into her mouth while cooking, to recognize when she was full and put her cutlery down.

This wasn’t a sustainable way to live. In hindsight, she should have come clean with Dave right from the start, told him: This is me, take me or leave me. This is what you’re getting into, if you want to be with me. Here’s what you should know.

But now it was too late to have that conversation. Telling him the truth now, because she was worried she’d be caught out, was weak and would only make everything worse. So she’d slip away from him instead, she had decided: write a brief note of apology, get in her car and take of somewhere new. Start over. Try and get it right next time. He seemed distracted by the news he’d had about John that morning, she figured. He’d get over her soon enough.

Dave deserved better than her anyway. Look at him, how delighted he was that his parents seemed to have sorted out their differences and were coming home together from Madeira, the second honeymoon finally completed! He believed in true love and sailing off into the sunset with someone, and it was only right that he should find an uncomplicated woman who could give him everything he wanted from life, a woman free from baggage and police interviews and prison-contained ex-husbands.

And so, while Dave went off to the airport on Sunday to welcome home the second-honeymooners, Bunny looked around the quiet house one last time, took a deep resigned breath and decided to make her move. She didn’t have much to pack – a sports bag or two of clothes, a few pieces of jewellery, the card from Chloe, her make-up and toiletries. Her cardboard doppelgänger could stay, she decided scornfully, folding the huge, sad figure in half and treading it down, before stuffing it into the recycling box.

Dave, you’re the loveliest man in the world and the best thing that ever happened to me, she wrote on a piece of paper, feeling tears starting to gather in her eyes at the thought of him coming back and finding her gone:

But the truth is, you’re too good for me – and if you knew what I’d done, you’d probably think the same, too. Someone better is out there for you, someone worthy of you. I hope you’re happy together. But I’m going now and you won’t see me again. I’m sorry to let you down. Love—

She started to form the B for Bunny, but it felt like one last lie to him, when she was trying to be honest. She thought about writing ‘Me’ instead, but then realized that signing off ‘Love Me’ might sound like a command, rather than a closure. A big kiss – that would have to do. Her brain felt too strange and sad and churned up to deliberate over the details any longer.

Bags in the car, she posted her door keys through the letterbox, hearing them drop to the mat there, but then was paralysed with doubt and second thoughts. Was she making the right decision? Was it too late for her to change her mind? Oh, talk about pathetic, she couldn’t even do a bunk properly, she thought miserably to herself, turning on her heel and getting into her car just as the rain began. And where was she going to go? She didn’t even have a plan in place. This was the most shambolic running-away attempt ever. Hopeless! Just like she was hopeless at everything.

Tears leaked from her eyes as she started driving towards the ring-road, the wipers flicking back and forth as the rain hammered down, deciding on impulse that she’d head north and just see where she got to. Despite today’s thunderstorm, it was summer; there would be jobs going at hotels and bars in every big city or tourist place, she figured. Something cash-in-hand, where she wouldn’t need a reference, somewhere bustling and busy where she wouldn’t be asked too many difficult questions. And if the job turned out to be boring and repetitive, and if whichever cheap place she found to stay was grotty and grimy, then she’d just have to suck it up, because it would be her own stupid fault and all she deserved anyway.

Oh God, she thought, suddenly despairing at the enormity of yet another new start when she already felt so worthless. Could she do it? Was it even worth trying?

By the time she’d reached the ring-road, the rain was really coming down in sheets: water drumming on the car roof and spraying against the windscreen, great wide pools already appearing on the tarmac. Inside the car she was still crying, the tears coursing down her cheeks, despite her efforts to dash them away on her sleeve. And then, maybe it was the wet road, or this brief lapse in concentration, maybe it was even her having given up and no longer caring, but suddenly her wheels went skidding beneath her and the car swerved across the next lane. There was the sound of urgent hooting and, with a thud of alarm, she saw that another car was barrelling down towards her. Horns blared. Rain thundered. She hauled at the steering wheel, she pumped at the brake, she heard herself giving a scream of fright.