But I was already typing and, within seconds, I had eBay up on the laptop and was searching for the most recently listed items under ‘handmade crochet’. The screen filled with pictures of the usual hexagon cardigans, water-bottle holders and tote bags. Nice, bright, pretty designs. None of them were mine, though. I scrolled and a familiar pair of mules – dupes I’d made of a Prada pair – popped up.
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said, but she sounded far away. ‘I know it’s awful but… this doesn’t mean you can’t trust anyone new, okay? Or maybe he meant he was keeping most of the stuff but he didn’t have a use for those, or—’
‘I didn’t make those for Richard,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘They weren’t in the donation bags.’
‘Oh,’ Emma brightened, but then seemed to think for a second. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh.’
‘I made them for Richard’s sister last Christmas. He told me he took them with him on their family get-together and she loved them.’ I let out a long breath. ‘He never gave them to her, did he?’
I was thinking of all the things I’d made for his family, for Christmases I was never invited to – because the rule was wives only. No girlfriends. The shawl I made his mother, the golf-club covers for his dad, amigurumi toys for his nieces and nephews (whole play sets of fruits and baked goods). I scrolled through eBay and saw it all posted there, some of it already with bids on. Items going for thirty, forty, even sixty pounds, with days left on the auctions. So much stuff.
It looked like Richard was going to get some start-up money out of me after all. That was why he’d been so upset about the jumpers. He hadn’t suddenly realised how much he valued me and the symbols of my love for him. He’d been seeing pound signs.
‘Are you all right?’ Emma asked, breaking my staring contest with the eBay results page.
‘Yeah… it’s fine,’ I said faintly, feeling like there was a fist in my throat wearing some very spiky rings. ‘We’re broken up now anyway… good riddance, right?’
‘Right,’ Emma agreed, though she didn’t sound that certain. Fair enough, neither was I. This hurt almost as much as the cheating. He’d lied to me for several years now. Not just about Christmas but every time I’d asked him what his family might like for birthdays and christenings. Every time I’d asked if they liked their gifts. He’d lied right to my face about it. Why? Was he embarrassed by my homemade presents? He could have just said they wanted something specific from a shop. I wasn’t unreasonable – I didn’t want to push my crochet on everyone. I would have understood. God, what if he didn’t realise that? Did I really seem like some kind of crazy crafting person who couldn’t take a hint?
No matter how angry and upset I was at Richard, I couldn’t help but feel a prickle of guilt inside. That maybe, somehow, everything that had gone wrong between us was partly my fault too.
Maybe if you’d spent less time on your crochet and your silly little hobby shop, this would never have happened.
Maybe he had a point.
Chapter 12
Iwent for awander at lunchtime, just to take my mind off Richard and the crochet auctions. I’d been refreshing the pages all morning and looking at the bids as they came in, which I knew wasn’t healthy or helpful, but that hadn’t stopped me.
Richard had set the prices too low but he’d probably still get a good amount for the whole collection. I’d made so many things and he hadn’t given any of them to his family. I had no idea where he’d been keeping them. Maybe at work, where he had a large locker for extra suits and his Hunter wellies for more rural property viewings. Hell, maybe he’d just chucked them in a gym bag in the boot of his car.
I wasn’t thinking about it. I wasn’t. We were finished and it didn’t matter any more. To that end, I decided it was time to break the news to my mother. As much as I didn’t want to hear what she thought I could have done to prevent Richard from cheating on me, I had to tell her sometime. Even if I kept flashing back to the moment I’d come home crying because everyone at school made fun of my wide-legged trousers and she’d looked me up and down before saying, ‘Well, I did warn you.’
I found her number in my contacts and hit ‘call’ as I took a seat on a bench down the side of the butcher’s. Mum answered on the third ring.
‘Hi, love. Unusual for you to call – what’s up?’ I could tell, from the slightly tinny echo, that I was on speakerphone. At a guess, this was because Mum was painting her nails, as I couldn’t hear the Hoover and that was the only other time she used hands-free.
‘Oh, um… nothing much. I just wanted to call and… check in,’ I heard myself say stiffly.
‘Ah, well, it’s nice to hear from you. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the party, both me and your dad are. It feels like we don’t get to spend much time together any more. Still… you’ve got Richard to be worrying about. I understand.’
‘I… do, yes.’ I cursed myself inwardly for my cowardice. This exact thing had happened when I was trying to break up with my university boyfriend. Every time we saw each other, he smiled and hugged me or gave me a kiss – how could you dump someone after that? It went on for a month. Mum had been upset to hear about that break-up too, I remembered. She was more excited to hear I had a boyfriend than when I’d told her I got a two:one.
‘How is Richard?’ Mum asked, and I felt a spasm of shock as if she’d read my mind. ‘He’s not been around for a while – work must be really busy?’
‘It is, yeah, but he’s fine. We’re both just really, really busy. You know, the shop, his work and trying to set up a business…’ I trailed off before I could add ‘his affair’ to the list.
‘Hmm,’ Mum hummed, sounding troubled. ‘Well, just make sure you’re looking after him – cooking something nice and making sure you look your best at the end of the day. You know, the shop is lovely and everything but… Richard is your future. You need to put as much work into your relationship as you do into work, if not more.’
‘Mmmhmm,’ I got out, through a throat suddenly thick with shame, irritation prickling at my neck. Did she really think so little of me that Richard was all I had going for me in terms of the rest of my life?
‘Oh, I have to tell you – your father’s decided to repaint the front of the house and we have had a terrible time tracking down the same pink as before. And you’ll never guess who we saw at B&Q…’
I let her talk for twenty minutes about paint charts, why Sally from the sweet shop would be buying so much wood glue and what the weather was doing at the weekend. I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t want to tell her. Even though I knew I had to, that she’d find out sooner or later, I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t want to hear that first disappointed ‘Tabby…’ to come out of her mouth. It would hit me right in my chest, where it was still sore and aching from heartbreak. It was going to hurt and I didn’t want to invite that pain in.
Once Mum rang off to do her pedicure, I went for a walk and tried to soak in some positivity. Leaford high street looked lovely in the autumnal sun, the hand-painted signs and red bricks glowing and leaves the colour of dried apricots drifting from the oak trees in the park. Acorns and chestnuts popped under my boots as I crunched down the street and the smell of freshly baked bread and hot coffee wafted from the bakery. Bliss.
Or at least it was until I reached the bakery steps and saw none other than Richard inside. He was probably buying himself some focaccia on his lunch break. Having not had his fix after I caught him cheating and tried to batter him with the bag of baked goods. I backed away in panic and sidestepped. There was no way I wanted to risk talking to him again after the state he’d left me in that morning. I had to hide.
