When Tara woke up the following morning, it was still raining.
Everything was dripping with water as she hurried to the car, with her blow-dried hair tucked into a beret. The trees, the patio furniture, the bird table, all dripping. She was starting to get a bad feeling about so much rain.
Tara didn’t take the straight route into Longhampton; she deliberately followed the route she and David sometimes took when they met up at the corner of Coleridge Street and Chaucer Avenue, in case for some inexplicable reason he’d decided to walk and she could give him a lift, but there was no sign of his familiar gabardine mac.
Tara needed David’s calming company this morning. As she drove, flashbacks from the weekend kept sliding sideways into her head when she was trying to memorize the notes she’d made on the interview prep lying open on the passenger seat. Even David’s trademark running commentary about the traces of Roman wall along the road into the centre of town would have been a welcome distraction from the mental image of Mum and Diane locked in a passionate—
‘Just no,’ she said aloud. Then added, ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with same-sex couples,’ in case her mother – or anyone else – could hear her.
Another car hooted at her as she drifted slightly out of her lane, trying to read what she’d written about the ethics of Zoom therapy sessions.
The traffic was crawling on account of everyone slowing down to avoid the fresh flooding on the road. Tara sat for ten minutes in a queue for the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill, flipping through scribbled 3 a.m. bullet points on the hypothetical client crises she would have to discuss in under thirty minutes.
Why hadn’t she double-checked the interview date? It was such a stupid, careless mistake to make.
She hit the steering wheel with the palms of her hands.
Come on, Tara, she told herself. Don’t let yourself down.
The Wellness Centre smelled of wet coats and bad moods, and not even Jacqueline’s new Monday-morning flowers could cheer up the clammy atmosphere in reception.
Tara went straight to the kitchen to make herself a strong coffee. She still had time to get her head together before her interview, and a big dose of caffeine might help.
As she slipped out of her office, from the corner of her eye Tara saw David leave his office and head straight down the corridor, then down the broad stairs at a brisk trot. He did it rather elegantly, as if to an inaudible Fred Astaire soundtrack.
Tara frowned. Where was he going? And why was he wearing a suit?
Emily was already in the kitchen, stirring her tea and rolling her eyes at this week’s horoscope. ‘Morning, Tara! You’re a Capricorn, aren’t you? Fabulous week coming up for you, you lucky old goat.’
‘No, I’m a Pisces,’ she said, getting her mug out of the cupboard. ‘Can’t you tell from the gills?’
Emily looked back at the board, then grimaced. ‘Oh. Ouch. Well, never mind.’
Tara decided she didn’t need to know what was in store for Pisces. As if this week could get any worse.
‘David’s looking smart today,’ Emily observed, as Tara flicked the kettle on.
‘Is he?’ Tara pretended she hadn’t noticed. David was always well put together – tie, jacket, shirt with proper sleeves – but this was … smart. A pale biscuit-coloured suit, white shirt, striped tie, his brown hair freshly cut.
‘Dressed to impress, I’d say.’
The questions flipped over in Tara’s head. Was David going on a date? Did he have a special client? He hadn’t said anything. Was the ex-girlfriend back on the scene? Tara was surprised to find herself hoping not.
‘I wonder if …’ Emily said, then stopped theatrically.
‘You wonder if what?’ asked Tara, since that was clearly her line.
‘I wonder if …’ Emily repeated under her breath, then leaned out of the kitchen door to check no one was about to come in. When she was satisfied that they were alone, Emily nodded towards the staircase. ‘I wonder if that was an interview suit? Do you think Dr David’s applied for the Centre Director job?’
That was one option Tara hadn’t considered. ‘No, why would he? He’s only been here a few months.’
‘He hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t. And she hadn’t said anything to him about her application.
Which Tara now realized wasn’t the same thing at all.
Emily’s eyebrows jiggled again and she put a finger to her lips and stepped out on to the landing, beckoning Tara to follow her. Then she leaned over the polished oak banister, embellished with a range of locally grown carbohydrates, and peered down the stairwell to the ground floor.
David was standing outside the downstairs meeting room, fidgeting with his tie. As they watched, he knocked sharply on the door – a brisk three-note rap – and was summoned inside. The door closed behind him.
Tara’s heart dropped in her chest.
Emily turned to her. ‘That’s where they’re doing the interviews, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I mean, I guess so.’
‘Well, then.’ She sashayed back into the kitchen for her tea. Emily loved being proved right. ‘He’s going for it. Good luck to him.’
It took the final shreds of Tara’s self-control not to let her disappointment show. That was that. If David was applying for the role, with his qualifications and his experience and his charm, that was it. He’d probably hypnotize the bloody interview panel into giving him a company car too.
The energy drained from her. Was it too late to go home? She was experiencing a genuine, undeniable family crisis. In fact, Tara argued, some people would counsel that she shouldn’t even do the interview in her current mental state. Was it even possible to outline your vision for an outreach therapy programme if there was a real chance that you might be ambushed by a mental image of your mother having sex with the woman who taught you to drive?
‘Oh, Tara, don’t look like that!’ Emily grabbed her arms. ‘It won’t just be decided on the basis of qualifications! I mean, you’ve got … qualifications too. And you really know this area – you’ve spent your entire career in this town, whereas David’s worked in London and Newcastle and Birmingham – big cities with big-city problems. You know exactly how small-town people tick.’
‘Are you trying to make me feel better?’
‘Yes!’ Emily frowned. ‘Am I not?’
‘Not really.’
‘God, I’m sorry.’ She looked contrite. ‘Do you want a biscuit?’
They looked at the plate by the kettle: a collection of green cookies in the shape of shamrocks. There was a Post-it note stuck to the counter next to it, on which someone had written THIS IS CULTURALLY OFFENSIVE TO THE CELTIC DIASPORA!!! in angry capitals.
‘Judith?’
‘I think so.’
Tara sighed and took a shamrock. Then a second one, along with her cup of coffee. She was going to need all the luck of the Irish now, if that wasn’t a politically questionable thing to wish for.
Tara’s interview didn’t start well. It didn’t end well, and there was a period in the middle where she thought it might be going all right, but it turned out she’d been waxing lyrical about talking therapies when in fact the earnest male trustee had asked her about Tolkien therapy. Which she hadn’t even heard of.
After forty-five minutes of painful limping around the hypothetical management situations, Jacqueline asked if Tara had any questions for them, and the only thing that came into her mind was, Please can I go now?
In the last-choice cafe down the street from the Wellness Centre, Tara stared bleakly into her collapsing cappuccino. That had been, without doubt, the worst interview of her life, but weirdly, she felt nothing.
Something Tara’s supervisor had told her early on in her training kept running across her mind like breaking news: ‘Numbness doesn’t mean you’re feeling no emotion, it means you’re feeling too much emotion. You’re flooded.’
Tara knew that was true. Finally, she was overloaded. Her brain was silted up with toxic emotions like guilt and shame and resentment and …
‘Oh God,’ she said aloud, and rested her eyes on the heels of her palms until everything went a comforting black. She hated interviews, but she’d never failed one before.
Tara could tell Jacqueline was disappointed with her performance. Surprised and disappointed, that double-edged schoolteacher reaction. She’d blanked the names of the other two board members sitting on either side of her: the serious man who wrote down everything she said, and a woman with pink hair who stared at her without blinking, as if waiting for Tara to say a trigger word she could pounce on.
The waitress had already circled her table once, checking she wasn’t crying by wiping the tables around her. She didn’t want to get into a conversation about why her mascara looked like this.
Tara made herself sip her coffee to show the waitress she was fine, and stared out through the window. The rain was relentless. People were hurrying down the high street with umbrellas, their flimsy summer clothes covered up with anoraks resentfully dug out of cupboards. August, so-called high summer, and it was more like October out there, wet and grey and mean. This wasn’t summer, thought Tara, not like the turquoise sea and sun-bleached sand of Toby’s Instagram account.
In a funny way, thought Tara, at least this unmitigated disaster took one decision out of her hands. There would be no salary-based mortgage now. No mortgage meant no way of giving Toby his half of the house, so Wye Villa would have to be sold. Even though she was still mad at Toby, Tara had decided she couldn’t not give him his half. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t. She certainly couldn’t maintain her comfortable position on the moral high ground.
The thought of her home in an estate agent’s brochure made her heart sink with sadness and she immediately tried to buoy it up with positive thoughts.
What’s wrong with you? This means you can travel! You can plan that holiday you’ve been promising yourself for years.
Today wasn’t a failure; it was a sign!
She started to warm to her task. The universe didn’t want her to stay in Longhampton. The universe wanted her to have a break, get out of town, find new inspiration, meet new people. Maybe fall in love. She was free to do whatever she wanted to do now – nothing was holding her back. Not Mum, not work, nothing.
A stunned smile broke across Tara’s face, and the waitress wiping the table opposite smiled back with relief. Their eyes met, and Tara nodded awkwardly towards the half-eaten cake in front of her. ‘Great carrot cake.’
The waitress nodded, unconvinced.
Tara got her notebook out of her bag and began to plan her escape.
No, not escape. Escape was a Keith Hunter thing. What she was doing was planning a structured sabbatical.
Her heart beat faster, but with relief this time, not panic. She’d have to put the house on the market, this week. The agents already had people lined up; the deal could be done in no time.
Her clients. Tara did feel responsibility there, but she was hardly the only CBT therapist in the country. And if she was honest, there were a few of them who could probably do with the break. Nothing wrong with a change of counsellor now and again.
Would David miss her if she left?
The thought pierced the muddiness in her mind, smarting like a bee sting.
She would miss David. She’d miss his relentlessly educational company on the morning walk to work, his thoughtful observations that often made her think harder about her own snap judgements. She’d miss the old-fashioned way he held the heavy Centre door open for her, and the brief scent of soap and ironed cotton and warm male skin that she caught as she ducked under his arm to go in.
Tara checked herself. She was going on holiday, not leaving for ever. And after all this time, it was time to leave. That much was suddenly very clear.
Back to her escape plans. Flood committee. There were so many people more organized than her who could take over. Troutbridge Hall was nearly done and—
‘Hello, gorgeous.’
Tara’s head jerked up, and she blinked in shock.
Sitting in the chair opposite her, large as life and twice as charming, was Phil Shawcross.
‘I’ve been trying to call, but I think you’ve got me blocked, haven’t you? And I don’t blame you.’ He sipped the black coffee the waitress had brought over with a coy smile. (The waitress, not Phil. Phil was, Tara noticed, unusually careful not to give the waitress a coy smile back.) ‘I was on my way to the Wellness Centre, as it happens. You’ve saved me fifty quid – I was going to book a session with you.’ He adopted a serious expression. ‘So we could talk.’
‘You know I blocked you because I didn’t want to talk?’
‘I guessed that.’ He gazed at her earnestly. ‘But there are things I need to say, Tara.’
‘Oh.’
It wasn’t something she would have admitted aloud but seeing Phil across the table was actually very, very pleasant right now. He always had that air of someone who could make a situation better, even if it was just by ordering cake with zero thought for the calories. He was still wearing a little too much aftershave, and she had a bad feeling he was wearing Chelsea boots, but something was different about him. He seemed to care much more than usual about how he was coming across.
‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘Talk.’
Phil adopted a serious expression. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Since you ask, I’m having a nightmare day.’ Tara never had a problem being honest with Phil. That went with the no-commitment territory, weirdly enough. There was never anything at stake, no need to lie to make yourself look better. ‘I’ve just screwed up a really important interview.’
Tara didn’t tell him about her dad, or Toby, or Molly. That also went with the territory.
‘I’m sure you haven’t.’
‘No, there’s no need to be nice. I made just about every mistake I could have done.’ Sure, she should be icy with Phil, but after the weekend she’d had, it seemed unimportant. ‘But maybe it’s for the best. I’ve decided it’s time for some changes in my life.’
‘Me too. Me too, Tara.’ Phil reached for her hands across the table, cupping them in his own. They were warm and made hers look delicate in comparison, but Tara was surprised by how unmoved she was. They were just nice, warm hands. She couldn’t be bothered to remove hers. ‘I’ve got something I need to say.’
‘Really? OK.’
‘Um, right. Well …’ He cleared his throat. ‘So.’
Tara suspected she wasn’t giving Phil the reaction he’d expected; he seemed to be mentally throwing discarded prompt cards over his shoulder as they failed to have the desired effect.
‘Last time we met,’ he began, ‘I should have said sorry a lot more than I did. I wasn’t thinking straight, a lot of stuff had just happened. I was at an emotional crossroads, and I just took the easiest route. But I’ve spent the last few weeks really examining my life, and I realized that if I didn’t come back here and tell you what you meant to me, I’d never forgive myself.’
‘Right,’ said Tara. ‘So – your not-wife threw you out?’
‘No!’
‘You mean she’s not your wife, or she didn’t throw you out?’
‘I mean …’ Phil pushed the hank of blond hair out of his eyes. ‘You’re confusing me, Tara.’
‘No, I get it. You’ve broken up with the woman who was allergic to the cat you dumped on me.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And now she’s dumped you, you’re here to see if you can pick up where you left off.’
‘No!’
Tara smiled sadly at him. It was so much easier when you didn’t care. If only she could bottle this feeling and sell it to her unhappy, hanky-shredding clients. ‘Come on, Phil. I do this for a living. Just spit it out.’
Phil stared down at his coffee as if gathering his thoughts. It took a while. When he met Tara’s eyes after a moment or two, the expression on his handsome face was one she hadn’t seen before. He looked uncertain.
‘I knew there wasn’t a way of saying this that wouldn’t make me look like a tosser, Tara. So maybe I’m just a tosser. But the thing is, I’ve missed you so much. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t, but I did. More than that, I missed the person I was when I was with you.’
‘Wow,’ said Tara. ‘Existential.’
He gazed at her, hurt. ‘Don’t make fun of me when I’m trying not to sound like a plum.’
‘Sorry. Go on.’
Phil braced himself. ‘When I was with you, I always tried that bit harder. You are such a great girl, Tara.’
‘Woman.’ Oh, stop it, she told herself. He’s trying.
He didn’t even kick back at it. ‘Such a great woman. You’re strong and you’re smart and you’re bloody gorgeous. Never met a … woman like you before. I guess I was just scared of you finding out what a plum I was, if I let you get too close to who I really am, underneath the chat. I think …’ He swallowed. ‘I think I might actually love—’
‘Don’t say it, Phil.’ Tara held up a finger.
He sighed. ‘Listen, I understand if you don’t want to give us another try – I get that – but I wanted you to know that I’ve broken up with Zoe. You can’t marry someone because they take you on holiday. I decided it wasn’t fair to marry her when I was missing you.’
At least he was being honest. That put a different slant on things.
‘I’ve also decided to retrain and do something useful for the community.’
‘And what’s that?’
Phil beamed. ‘I’m going to college to learn how to be a paramedic. Always wanted to drive an ambulance. I reckon they need drivers who can get to the scene of an accident quick smart.’
‘Wow.’ Tara realized she’d never known exactly what Phil did, beyond ‘business consultancy’. He wouldn’t be able to go off-radar for three weeks in an ambulance. That’s if they even let him drive one, with his points. She decided not to rain on that parade. ‘Well, good for you, Phil.’
He looked up, gazing straight into her face with his blue eyes, eyes that could wink her into bad decisions just like that. They were serious now. ‘You once told me change is hard, but I’m ready for it. I needed this shock to make me realize what I really wanted. But I’m going on holiday first.’
‘Oh.’ That was more like Phil.
‘Yeah, bit awkward, as it happens. I’d booked the apartment for me and Zoe, as a last-minute thing but obviously that’s off. Somewhere in Italy, near some vineyards or something. Seven days, all-inclusive, end of the month. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to come?’
He looked hopeful.
‘Have I got this right?’ asked Tara. ‘You’re asking me to come on the holiday you booked for the woman you were two-timing me with?’
Phil gazed at her, and there was a glimmer of the old charm under the new humility. ‘Come on. I didn’t have to tell you the truth, did I? I could have just said, “Tara, I’ve booked a holiday for you and me in Italy …”’
Tara rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to be amused, but it was so outrageous she couldn’t help it.
‘You’ll think about it?’
Why not? What else was there to think about right now? Wherever she turned – work, the house, her dad, her brother, the floods – there was stress and responsibility. A week away in the sun with Phil, with absolutely no promises of anything other than vino and a hot tub, was tempting. It shouldn’t be. But it was.
‘Phil, tell me something.’
‘What?’
‘Have you been reading self-help books?’
‘How did you know?’
‘I just … I just guessed.’
‘I’ve been seeing a counsellor too,’ he said proudly. ‘Will you think about it?’
‘I’ll phone you,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve a lot on right now.’
‘Do you …’ His face twisted with the effort of the New Phil. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Tara smiled. ‘It’s OK. I don’t.’ She pulled her coat off the back of her chair and glanced out at the street. A shallow river was running down each side of the road, swirling into the gutters. Cars swished past, their windscreen wipers flicking thick swipes of rain from side to side. No one looked happy about it.
August. This was August. But it wasn’t raining in Tuscany.
‘I’ll call you,’ she promised, and headed out into the rain, back towards the office.
She’d only got as far as the deli on the corner when Toby rang.
‘Can you come home?’ he asked, dispensing with any preamble. ‘As soon as you can?’
‘What? Is everything OK?’ Tara started walking more quickly, avoiding the growing puddles on the pavement.
‘No,’ said Toby. ‘Not really. I need you back here, now. Quick as you can.’
And he hung up.