I was only twenty when I met Phil. Jessica was just a year old and I was living with my mother having returned there, tail between my legs, when she was seven months. I'd tried to make a go of it with Jessica’s father but two teenagers and a surprise pregnancy was hard going.
I see now that it was the worst decision I could've made. Not the separation from Jessica's father (who got another girl pregnant within the year), but going back to my mother. She was single at the time and going on blind dates with a frenzy.
My mother isn't the type of woman who does well on her own. She's only bearable when she's got male company, and it's only a new lover that she'll listen to. Her mind overthinks and if she doesn't have someone to tell her to ‘cut that crap out’ her neurosis goes on overdrive. So life at home was tense.
I'd been working at the chemist two months when I met Phil. Even now I can remember him: wearing a suit, dark brown with a pale blue tie. I was watching him before he even came into the pharmacy. I liked the way he moved; he was very self-assured. He swung his arm a little as he walked, in time with the swing of his hips.
‘You’re new,’ he’d said, walking right up to me and I’d blushed. He’d laughed at my embarrassment and I’d joined in, amused by the reaction he’d caused in me.
‘When did you start?’ he asked and listened with real interest when I told him. He was a medical sales rep back then, often visiting the surgery and presenting to the staff but he’d always stop by to see me.
I was a single mother; no real money, no qualifications, a distrust of men and a bullying, controlling mother. Phil changed everything. He managed to charm not only me and my daughter, but also my mother. And when I moved out, ready to start my life with Phil, my mother said the only nice thing I can ever remember, ‘Keep tight hold,’ she'd said, ‘you two have something good there.'
If I’d been told the future then, I’d have laughed. If I’d been shown images of myself with trembling hands as I got myself dressed that morning, the sweat on my forehead as I hobbled to the sink to wash, the anxiety over my husband's actions and fidelity clear on my face, I’d have laughed back then and said it was impossible. Unbelievable, unthinkable. Phil was my saviour, my knight, the happy ending to my fairy-tale.
But the knight in shining armour routine was done fourteen years ago. People change. Look at my mother. She remarried, moved to Devon and became a Buddhist. We’ve a strained relationship now. I tend to keep her at arm’s length, avoiding her calls and emails, but when I do talk to her, she tells me about mindfulness and freedom from material possessions. She tells me I’m self-obsessed and greedy, and perhaps I am greedy, wanting a safe, predictable life for me and my family, but so what? Doesn't everyone?
We have a large kitchen diner, open plan, wooden floors and plenty of space. It's the room I love most in the house. We had kept to minimalist decor, white walls, the Scandinavian look. The simplicity of it was soothing as I made it to the kitchen table with the laptop lying there, and collapsed on the chair panting. I'd had to come downstairs on my bottom and my whole body ached with the effort. My cast was painful, a dull ache that the medication hadn't completely soothed.
Rain was hitting the window, it was coming down heavy and I shivered slightly; I was wearing a cotton wrap dress, more suited to August than November, but it was the best I could do and it provided no comfort from the chill in the air.
The phone rang just as I was pulling the laptop toward me and I froze. The nearest one was in the hall by the front door and I couldn’t make it there in time. I waited, listening to see if they’d ring off or leave a message. I heard the answer machine kick in. My cheerful voice apologise to whoever was on the other end of the line and invite them to leave a message. There was a pause, an intake of breath, and then a familiar voice that made my heart gallop.
‘Mr Farrell? It’s Detective Sergeant Bailey here, just following up on last night’s call.’ He took a moment. ‘I’d really like to speak to you, and Mrs Farrell, about the run of events that took place yesterday. If you could call the station, as soon as possible, the number is…’ I couldn’t listen to any more of the message, the pounding of the blood in my ears was roaring. The police had called again. Did they know something? Worked something out that I hadn’t?
I pulled the laptop toward me and opened it up, Della hadn’t yet arrived and for that I was grateful. I’d no idea what time Phil had told her to come and I had a vague notion that she was taking the piss, but I couldn’t speculate on that now. I needed to see the Twitter messages. I needed to know if it was Phil who sent them.
The dial on the screen slowly turned as I waited for the Wi-Fi to connect, for the page to upload. And then, when it did, I let out a groan of frustration. Instead of taking me straight to an account, as it had before, a page uploaded asking me to log in. I thought how I got to the messages yesterday and went back to Google, typed in the Santa holidays I'd been looking at, desperately searching for the Twitter icon I'd clicked. I found it and again, was presented with the home page asking for log in details. I banged my fist on the table, desperately trying to remember the username from the messages I'd read.
BigSmilers I typed in, hoping that the username would be stored and recognised but nothing came up. BigSmiles, BigSmiling, BigSmiler.
I clicked on ‘forgot password’ and it prompted for an email or phone number. I froze, if I put Phil's mobile number in, the message would go directly to him. I was at a loss. I thought a moment and then went into the calendar function. It was something I used heavily to organise my work and it was also where I put in Phil’s movements. I went back over the previous weeks, his trips to London. How long he’d been there, when he’d returned. Were they all lies? Was he seeing another woman in Chester on all these dates instead?
I looked over yesterday’s entry, Phil in London, I’d typed for the Tuesday morning, but he wasn’t in London. He’d taken the morning off. He’d lied.
‘Where were you?’ I hissed at the screen. ‘Were you in Crewe or on that bloody retail park?’
I needed his phone, his diary. I needed to read his emails but I had no idea how. I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. Immediately the hit and run played out in my mind: Phil’s BMW charging forward, the screech of tyres against the ground.
‘Shit,’ I said as saliva filled my mouth. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
I took a few deep breaths that had no impact on my thudding heart, and went back to Google.
Hit and Run. Chester.
It was the first result.
Officers appeal for information.
Police were called to Grosvenor Retail Park yesterday afternoon following reports that a pedestrian had been hit by a moving vehicle outside the Mexican fast food outlet. Officers were informed that a man had been involved in a serious collision with a black BMW, which failed to stop after the collision at around 2.30pm. The pedestrian, who suffered serious injuries and is believed to be in a coma, was taken to hospital where he is now receiving treatment. His condition is currently described as stable. Police are now appealing to the public. Anyone with information in relation to the incident should call…
A cold sweat had built on my shoulder blades, on my upper lip, between my breasts. None of it made sense. None of it.
It couldn't have been Phil, not my Phil. I could extend my imagination to him having an affair, I could stretch to that, but I would not accept that he had anything to do with the hit and run. He was a good man. He wouldn’t drive off after doing something like that. I couldn’t understand it, it just didn’t make any sense. I’d seen that car, his car, travel at speed. As if they intended to hit whoever they were charging at. It wasn’t an accident, not what I’d seen, so it made no sense that Phil, my Phil of all people, would do something like that.
The front door slammed and I jumped.
I grabbed the map and screwed-up parking ticket and thrust them in my pocket as footsteps made their way toward me. I had no idea what I’d say to him, how I’d ask him, tell him. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. I snapped the laptop shut and went for the earring but it escaped my fingers, it slid out of my grasp, moving further down the table. I stretched as far as I could, but my cast pinned me to the chair.
‘Hello?’
It was Della and I looked up in shock, relieved it was her but horrified to be caught out. I stretched as far as I could to the earring but to no avail.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late. Did you get my message? I called your mobile a few times but you didn’t pick up. Has everything been okay? Did the girls get to school? Phil said last night he'd take them, did he? How’s your ankle?’
She appeared in the French doors, soaked from the rain, her hair hanging down in long tendrils making her look much younger than she was.
‘I thought you'd be in bed!’ she said when she saw me. ‘Are you feeling alright? Is it okay if I put this in the dryer?’ She held up her coat. ‘I'm not sure it'll dry on the rack. It'll only need ten minutes or so. I'll do that and then get on with cleaning the kitchen, unless you need me for anything else? Do you want me to help you back upstairs? Back to bed?’
She came toward me, her face wet, and smiled. Then her expression froze when she saw my face.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked stopping at the side of me. ‘What’s happened?’
She looked down and saw the earring, the hoop that lay just out of my reach and picked it up. A small murmur escaped me, but it was too late. She was holding it in the light.
I went to say how it was mine, how it was Katie’s or Jessica's. The story of some made-up tale on the edge of my lips, but then her face broke out into a large grin that stopped me from talking.
‘My earring!’ she said. ‘You found it.’
I watched as she put it quickly into her earlobe with the practised moves of someone who does it daily. It was Della's earring.
‘I lost this yesterday when I was cleaning your room,’ she said. ‘Looked all over but couldn’t find it.’
I stared at her. It was Della’s earring, fallen from her ear when she was cleaning my bedroom, as I paid her to. Not fallen from Phil's pocket but fallen from my bed. I slumped in my chair, exhausted.
‘Your earring.’ I nodded. ‘Of course it's your earring,’ I said and closed my eyes, suddenly drained of all energy.
I thought of Phil, the idea of him having an affair with the wearer of the earring that was now back in Della’s ear. The logical explanation for how it had come to be in my bedroom.
‘I think I’m going insane,’ I told her and found myself starting to laugh.