Ninety-six hours and twenty-three minutes and not so much as a WhatsApp from the man I thought was my whole life. I shut the door to my flat behind me, sink to my haunches and burst into the tears I had to hold back at work. Somehow, I managed to sleepwalk my way through another day. I wasn’t, it has to be said, the kind of teacher I like to think of myself as. No inspiring the next generation. Instead, I found myself looking at the clock from ten o’clock, the kids’ endless questions made me feel like screaming, and I told Nisha that not all stories have happy endings. But I didn’t shout at anyone (and went out of my way to be nice to Tommy Cassidy); lessons, albeit lacklustre ones, were provided and everyone including me made it to pick-up time without crying.
Pebbles appears in the hallway and surveys me from a distance. Today, more than ever, I wish he would come to me. I know cats are not dogs, of course. I can’t expect a wagging tail or excited barking, but I’ve seen other people’s cats offer up a bit of a welcome – weaving themselves around legs, allowing themselves to be stroked, doing a bit of polite meowing.
Of course, Pebbles was once another person’s cat: he was my mum’s. In my more paranoid moments, I wonder if that’s why he doesn’t like me – because he knows I wasn’t the perfect daughter I somehow fooled the rest of the world into thinking I was.
‘I keep replaying last Friday evening over and over in my head,’ I say. ‘Me getting home burbling about how I really deserved my takeaway. The kids had been feral little buggers all day, probably not helped by the fact that it was bucketing down at break time, so I’d had to keep them all in the classroom. Hannah Marshall got a satsuma pip stuck in her ear. Did Mark know how lucky he was to work with people who didn’t put fruit pips in their ear just because they were bored? But then I stopped mid-sentence because Mark was sitting there on the sofa totally silent, his face ashen.’
Pebbles makes no comment.
‘He said we had to talk, and my stomach flipped because everyone knows what that means. Except that couldn’t be right because this was Mark. My Mark. The boy next door but one who I’d grown up with it. The Ant to my Dec. The person who pulled me through when Mum died.’
Pebbles says nothing.
‘Then he said he’d been headhunted for a job in Manchester and my whole body flooded with relief. I made a lame joke about how when I’d said I wanted to travel, I’d been thinking more in terms of Australia. Mark didn’t laugh.’ My voice cracks. ‘Which is when I knew this wasn’t about Manchester. Mark picked at a thread on his cuff and told me neither of us had ever dated other people. Like that was news to me. He said every time he thought about our upcoming wedding, he felt scared.’
Pebbles doesn’t reply.
‘Why did he leave? It can’t have been something he did on impulse, right? It must have gradually dawned on him that he didn’t want to marry me. Which means there must have been signs. Signs I was completely oblivious to.’
Pebbles doesn’t offer up an opinion.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by a man having a deep-seated fear of commitment. Hell, I’ve got my very own Peter Pan of a father. I thought Mark was different though.’
Pebbles remains silent.
‘Did he know he was going to dump me when we celebrated my birthday last month? When we bickered about the recycling? Did he already know what he was going to do when we went to Sal and William’s for dinner last Saturday night? We had a great evening, for God’s sake. And when we got home, we had sex. Really good sex. Or at least I thought it was. I keep exhuming memories and examining them with a new lens.’
Pebbles watches me, his expression impassive.
‘Is he telling me the truth when he says there’s no one else? Is he really frightened of marriage or is he just frightened of marriage to me? What’s wrong with me?’ I wipe my eyes with the remnants of a soggy, balled-up tissue. ‘I haven’t told a single person about the break-up. I just can’t. Telling people would make it real.’
Pebbles has no answer.
‘Today, in the staffroom, Rachel asked me what my fiancé and I were up to this evening and I just mumbled something about having a quiet one. But who knows what Mark is doing? Downloading Tinder, probably. Of course, I wouldn’t get away with keeping the break-up to myself if Mum was still alive. One look at me on FaceTime and she’d know something was up.’ A sob escapes from somewhere deep within my chest. ‘I must be the only twenty-nine-year-old in the world who has never experienced a break-up. Where’s the bloody instruction manual?’
Pebbles yawns expansively.
‘I don’t know if I can get through this.’
Pebbles stands up and I wonder if he’s moving towards me. Perhaps he can sense how sad I am and is going to make an exception to his ‘no petting’ rule. I imagine my fingers sinking into his soft, smooth fur.
Pebbles stalks off with his tail in the air, not giving me so much as a backward glance.
I sigh and wipe my eyes. I have just poured my heart out to a cat, asked it questions, for God’s sake. And as if that isn’t already certifiable enough behaviour, it’s not even a cat who likes me that much.
I drag myself to my feet.
Every inch of this flat reminds me of Mark. The previous owners had a penchant for sludgy colours and ‘unusual’ paint effects such as rag rolling and stippling. Mark and I spent hour after hour repainting it. We didn’t mind, though. It was actually quite fun working side by side while listening to cheesy pop music. Plus, this was our forever home.
Back when we had a forever.
A sharp pain blooms in my chest. I remember the first time in my life I discovered heartbreak can actually be something you feel physically. It was back when I was eleven and my dad left. Best not to dwell on that now though. One abandonment issue at a time. (Although maybe I should be looking at the pattern here? Examining what it is about me that makes people want to leave?).
The doorbell rings and my heart leaps. Mark! He has realised he’s made a crazy mistake and he’s back.
I bolt towards the door almost tripping on the edge of the rug.
I fling open the door. There before me is not Mark, but my father. I imagine my soul as a deflating balloon. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I thought I’d pay my little girl a surprise visit.’
‘All the way from Florida?’
‘Yup. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
I can think of few things I’d like to do less. I move aside and let my father pass, the bitter disappointment fizzing around my body. I really thought it was Mark. But, of course, Mark has keys. Which is the least of why I’m an idiot for thinking it was him.
My father and I stand facing each other in the small living room. He looks much older than when I last saw him a few years ago, and he is wearing some sort of ridiculous yoga gear that is way too clingy.
‘So why are you in London?’ An irrational thought flits into my mind: did I somehow summon up my father by thinking about him a few minutes ago, like some kind of unwelcome genie who has sod all power to grant wishes?
‘I told you I came to see you.’
‘You came four thousand miles to see me? And didn’t think to give me any warning?’
‘Yes and yes. I wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘Well, it’s certainly that.’
If my father notices my vinegary tone, he ignores it. ‘Shall I pop the kettle on?’
‘I’ll do it,’ I snap. The nerve of him acting as if I am failing in my duties as a hostess.
‘Where’s Mark?’ my father says over the sound of the kettle.
My stomach lurches. What the hell am I going to say?
‘Where have all the decent mugs gone?’ I say, burying my face in the cupboard and playing for time.
If I don’t feel ready to tell the world about my split with Mark, the person I least want to know about it is my father. It has been a point of pride on my part to show him that my life is a success despite him. Plus, unlike everyone else, he has always seemed annoyingly lukewarm about Mark, even asking me if I was sure that’s what I wanted when we got engaged.
Now I imagine the words Mark has left me coming out of my mouth. The inevitable tears. My father will look at me with pity. Poor little Emily. Humiliation floods my body.
I can’t. I won’t.
‘Mark is away on business.’
‘Oh, cool,’ my father says, plonking himself down on the sofa. ‘Where?’
For a second, I can’t think of a single place, but then the obvious answer floats into my consciousness. ‘Manchester.’
‘Oh, cool.’ He takes a swig of tea. ‘How’s work?’
‘Great.’ Another lie.
‘Cool.’
How many times is my father going to say ‘cool’? And is he actually putting his feet up on the coffee table? (The glass table that shows every little speck of dirt.) I hope he doesn’t think he’s staying for long. I fiddle with the engagement ring I haven’t yet been able to bring myself to remove.
‘You not having a cup of tea?’ he says.
I shake my head. ‘So are you still with Shona?’
‘Yup. Shona’s the one.’
I have to force myself not to roll my eyes. My father has a long history of women who were ‘the one’. That said, he does seem to have been with Shona a while now. What a bloody world it is when he’s the one in a stable relationship and I’m the one having to pretend I’m still engaged. ‘Listen, you really should have told me you were coming.’
‘Like I said, I wanted it to be a surprise.’
He’s doing his puppy dog eyes thing, and it’s all I can do not to scream that it may have worked on God knows how many unsuspecting women over the years, but it most certainly will not work on me. ‘Right. How long are you staying?’
‘My flight back to Tampa is next Monday evening.’
Oh, God, six whole days away! ‘And where are you staying?’
‘Well...’
Oh, no, no, no. My father cannot expect me to drop everything the moment he clicks his fingers. He waived those sort of privileges by deciding he’d spend the last eighteen years playing nothing more than a walk-on part in my life. ‘It’s just I’ve got a lot on right now. Work is crazy busy at the moment. We’re taking the whole reception year on a trip to the Science Museum this Friday. And then at the weekend, I have loads of plans.’ My father’s eyes are fixed on mine. Does he somehow know I’m lying? That my weekend ‘plans’ involve nothing more than shuttling between fridge and sofa while wallowing in self-pity. ‘I’m going to look at some wedding venues on Sunday afternoon.’ This is sort of true in the sense that I have appointments booked. For obvious reasons, I have been meaning to cancel them though.
My father nods. ‘So Mark will be back by the weekend?’
Sweat prickles my armpits. ‘Err, no.’ When had he said his flight was? ‘Not until Tuesday.’
‘Oh, so you’re going to look at wedding venues without him?’
I feel myself start to flush. ‘Yes, without him. Mark trusts me completely. He’s happy for me to go ahead and book somewhere if I like it.’
Why did I say that? Good liars, which I most certainly am not, don’t feel the need to over-explain like this.
‘Well, that’s great,’ my father says, smiling. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Tears prick the backs of my eyes. I choke them back, hoping my father hasn’t noticed them.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘I know me turning up out of the blue like this must come as something of a surprise, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently and all the mistakes I’ve made in the past.’
Mistakes? He buggered off to the other side of the world when I was eleven and pretty much forgot he even had a kid.
‘Good to see Pebbles is still alive,’ my father continues as the cat appears in the living room.
Yup, alive and unwillingly playing the role of my confidant.
‘The thing is, Em, I really want to make amends. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve changed. I learned from the 12-Step Program.’
My mouth opens and closes like a fish. I had no idea that my father was an alcoholic. He has a thousand other things wrong with him, but I’ve never thought of him as a particularly big drinker. I suppose it’s good he’s getting clean.
It doesn’t mean I’m going to let him stay though.