Saturday night and I’m home alone with Arthur doing my laundry. I fly to Spain on Monday and I still haven’t packed. I’m hopeless with packing. I never know what to take and always seem to pack the wrong things. With all the travelling I’ve done, you’d think I would have figured it out by now, but I’m forever reading those holiday articles about capsule wardrobes and rolling up a Breton top and a couple of scarves to make ten different outfits.
I did try it once when I went to Italy, but by mid-week my Breton top was covered in pesto and my feet in blisters (who on earth can take just one pair of sandals?). And trust me, there is only so much you can do with scarves.
This time I’m adopting more of a ‘take as much as you can ram in your suitcase’ approach and am washing my entire summer wardrobe, draping it all over the flat to dry. Edward refuses to have a dryer – he says it’s bad for the environment – so despite it being August, I’ve whacked on the heating full-blast and now the house is like a sauna. Poor Arthur is pegged out in his fur coat on my balcony.
I’m just taking out one load and shoving in another when the home phone rings. It’ll be another one of those nuisance calls we keep getting.
‘Sorry, we’re not interested,’ I say, before they’ve had a chance to try sell me something. I go to put the phone down.
‘Is that Mrs Lewis?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘This is Chief Inspector Grant from Brooksgate police station. I’d like to speak to a Mrs Edward Lewis?’
‘Oh . . . er, no . . . I’m his flatmate . . . well, his tenant, actually. He’s my landlord.’
‘And who would I be speaking to?’
‘Nell Stevens . . . Penelope Stevens,’ I quickly correct myself. This calls for four syllables. ‘Is Edward all right?’
‘Mr Lewis was involved in an incident and is currently being held in custody for questioning—’
‘Edward?’ I’m in disbelief. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘I’m a police officer, Miss Stevens. I am not in the habit of making prank phone calls.’
‘Sorry, yes . . .’ I step out into the hallway, away from the noise of the washing machine, to try and think straight. ‘Is he OK?’
‘We need someone to come down to the station and bring a spare pair of his glasses.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with the ones he’s wearing?’
There’s a pause, as if the inspector is considering how much information to give me. ‘Unfortunately Mr Lewis’s glasses were broken in the altercation leading up to his arrest.’
Altercation! Arrest! Edward?
I’m still in shock an hour later as I reach central London and push open the doors to the police station. These are not words you associate with Edward. I half think they’ve got the wrong person, but it turns out the bedraggled figure with the black eye and bust lip is indeed Edward. Albeit he’s almost unrecognizable.
‘Holy shit!’ As he’s led out of the holding cell to greet me, I jump up from my plastic chair.
‘Penelope?’
Abruptly, I realize he can’t see me properly as he’s not wearing his glasses.
‘Yes, it’s me, what on earth happened?’
As he comes closer I see the full extent of his injuries. He’s really quite badly beaten up.
‘A driver made an illegal turn and nearly knocked me off my bike, so I told him I was going to show the video from the GoPro on my helmet to the police as evidence . . .’ As he talks, he winces and touches his swollen bottom lip. ‘And he got quite angry and knocked me to the ground and grabbed my helmet from me, most likely because he knew he was in the wrong—’
‘But the police said you were the one to get arrested?’
‘We ended up getting into a bit of a fight and my phone got smashed . . . along with my glasses and his windscreen.’
I listen, my mouth agape; I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘You were fighting?’
‘I was defending myself,’ he protests indignantly, ‘there’s a difference. I was a victim of road rage! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell the police—’
‘WANKER!’
He’s interrupted as a large, bald-headed man with a bashed-up face and a bandaged hand is led out of his cell. ‘You better watch out, next time I’ll fucking ’ave you—’ He’s silenced by his wife, a tiny blonde woman, who grabs his elbow and hustles him away.
‘He looks worse than you.’
‘Well, I did play rugby . . . Ouch.’
Edward winces as he tries to smile. When he goes to touch his cheekbone, I notice his knuckles are cut.
‘You were lucky, he could have had a knife,’ I say, feeling both angry and relieved that it’s only a few cuts and bruises.
I glare at Edward and he looks suitably chastened.
‘Anyway, I couldn’t find your glasses, so I brought your contact lenses.’ As I take a pair out of my pocket, he squints at me through one eye. ‘Actually, maybe you just need one,’ I say, putting the other back.
‘Mr Lewis?’
We both turn to see a sergeant standing behind the desk. He’s holding up a ziplock bag; inside there’s a small leather wallet, some keys and a smashed phone.
‘If you’d like to sign here for the rest of your possessions.’
Edward goes over to sign. ‘Thank you, officer.’
‘As the interviewing officer confirmed, you’re going to be released on bail pending further inquiries, so please make sure you’re available to come into the station for any questions during the next few days.’ The sergeant hands him the bag together with his bicycle helmet. ‘Now, how are you getting home?’
‘Well, if you give me my bike back I can cycle.’
The policeman raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you?’
‘I’m a very good cyclist.’
‘When you can see out of both eyes, perhaps,’ he says evenly. ‘And what about Miss Stevens? Is she meant to have a backie?’
The policeman shoots me a look and I stifle a smile. He’s actually rather cute. I also notice he looks about fourteen. Is it just me or are policemen getting younger?
‘C’mon, Edward, let’s get the train,’ I say, looping my arm through his, and before he can argue I lead him out of the station.
‘I can’t believe they want to keep my bike as evidence.’
We’re sitting opposite each other on the South Western train from Waterloo, headed back home. In the bright lights of the carriage, the bruising around Edward’s eye already seems to be turning all kinds of lurid colours.
‘What are they going to do? Fingerprint it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head. He’s still angry about what happened, but I’m not really listening. Something’s been bugging me. ‘Edward, is there something you haven’t told me?’
His expression changes and he looks suddenly shame-faced.
‘Of course. I haven’t even thanked you for coming all this way to get me, have I?’ He rubs his forehead in agitation. ‘I’m so sorry, that’s really terrible of me—’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘It’s not?’ His brow furrows.
‘Edward, what were you doing in town on a Saturday night? Why weren’t you at home in Kent?’
My question seems to catch him out and he hesitates for a moment. ‘I was, but I came up on the train to meet a friend for a drink. He lives in the city.’
I sit back in my seat and eye him doubtfully. ‘But you were on your bike. You told me you leave it in the office at the weekend.’
He looks at me. ‘Would you believe me if I said I had two bikes?’
‘Not really.’
‘No, I wouldn’t either.’ And, dropping his head, he stares at his feet for what feels like the longest time.
Then he tells me.
He tells me all about how he’s been staying in a cheap hotel in town at the weekends for some months now, ever since he and his wife Sophie split up. And how he’s been too embarrassed and ashamed to admit it to anyone. He tells me how they’d been growing apart for years, ever since the twins were small, and how the skiing trip in the New Year was a last-ditch attempt to try and save their marriage and bring them closer together. But how instead it only served to highlight how far apart they had become.
‘And then at Easter she told me she wanted a divorce,’ he finishes, looking up at me.
‘Oh, Edward, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m not. It’s true, at first I was against it. My family doesn’t do divorce. I thought you just stayed in a marriage, whether you were miserable or not, because that’s what married people do. I saw divorce as a failure. But Sophie had the courage I was lacking.’ Rubbing his temples, he sighs. ‘Our marriage was over a long time ago and staying in it wasn’t going to fix anything, it was just going to waste the rest of our lives. I’m grateful to her for having the balls to do something about it.’
‘Have you told the boys?’
He nods. ‘They’re teenagers and more interested in their friends and their phones than what their parents do any more. They seemed pretty unfazed. Sam just asked us what took us so long. I guess we weren’t as good as we thought at hiding it.’
He raises a smile and I think back to my first impression of him when I went to look at his spare room. This happily married man with teenage boys and a gorgeous French wife, a successful career, and homes in London and the country, going off on family ski trips to Verbier. His life seemed so sorted compared to mine.
‘Now it’s a case of telling our family and friends. I’m sure my father will see it as just another way his son has disappointed him.’
‘But people get divorced all the time,’ I say supportively. ‘What’s the statistic? One in three, or is it one in two?’
‘Maybe,’ he shrugs. ‘But statistics don’t stop you feeling like a failure.’
I look at Edward and it’s as if a wall has come down. There’s a vulnerability I’ve never seen in him before. We’re such different people, worlds apart really, but I guess in some ways we’re not that different after all.
‘You need to get some ice on your face.’ I gesture to his eye, which is now almost closed. ‘It’ll help with the swelling.’
‘Christ.’ Catching sight of his reflection in the carriage window, he grimaces. ‘Is that really me?’ Slowly turning his head from side to side, he studies himself. ‘You know, this isn’t quite how I imagined my life was going to turn out . . .’ He looks back to me. ‘Ever get that feeling?’
The train starts to slow as it approaches our station and, as I stand up, I can’t help but smile.
‘All the time.’