Page 31 of The Work Husband

Then I caught sight of my face in the mirror and all my doubts came rushing back.

My mascara had smudged under my eyes. My hair had frizzed in the heat. My bra strap was showing above the low back of my dress.

And I could hear my mother’s voice, which I’d managed to silence in my mind over the past couple of hours.

If you lost a bit of that podge, you’d be quite a pretty girl, you know, Gigi.

Never go barefoot unless your toenails are immaculate, Gigi.

I suppose at least those spots show your hormones are working properly, Gigi.

I’d never been good enough – I never would be good enough. Not for her and, I realised with a crashing sense of sadness, not for Sam. There wasn’t much point even trying.

Fighting back tears, I washed my hands and made my way back to the bar. I wasn’t smiling any more. I asked for the bill and drank my cocktail like it was medicine, then tapped my phone on the card reader, thanked the barman briefly and left.

Outside, the bright sunshine dazzled me after the dim coolness of the bar’s interior. I stood there for a second, unsteady on my feet and blinking. I hadn’t realised how strong those drinks had been while I was drinking them, but I did now. For a second, I wasn’t even sure which way to walk to get home.

Home to Sam. I didn’t feel insulated or distanced any more – I felt a desperate longing to see him.

I opened the map app on my phone and held it out in front of me, squinting down because the sun was glaring off the screen, turning it this way and that so I could see whether the blue dot was pointing me in the right direction.

Satisfied at last that it was, I started walking, my eyes on the screen so I wouldn’t get lost.

I didn’t even see them until it was too late. Two young men on bicycles wearing black, riding fast and confidently, briefly mounting the pavement for just the time it took for one of them to snatch my phone out of my hand and the other one to push me to the ground.

The hot pavement smacked into my back as I cracked my head and felt all the air knocked out of my lungs.

SIXTEEN

It took me a couple of goes to slot my key into the lock, but before I could turn it, the door flew open.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Sam’s eyes were furious in his white face.

‘It’s a long story,’ I mumbled, tentatively placing a hand to the back of my head. ‘I need to sit down and have a glass of water. And a shower.’

Sam glared at me for a second. Then, without saying anything, he turned and walked into the flat. I followed him, my knees unsteady and my head banging. He led the way to the kitchen, poured water from the tap and dropped an ice cube into it, then handed it to me.

Feeling like my legs couldn’t hold me up any more, I flopped down on one of the stools at the counter.

‘Do we have any paracetamol?’ I asked.

‘Bathroom cabinet.’ He still looked narky as hell, but his voice was gentler.

‘Sorry… would you mind?’

He turned, disappeared for a second and returned with two tablets in the palm of his hand. When he handed them to me, I could see he was shaking.

‘I called you, like, six times, Georgia.’

I nodded, but the movement made my head bang even worse, and I felt a bit sick.

‘My phone was nicked.’ I swallowed the pills with some water.

‘What, out of your bag?’

‘Out of my hand. Right on the high street outside the station. They took it and’ – remembering, I wanted to cry – ‘they pushed me over. People came and helped me, and I tried to call you, but I couldn’t remember your number.’

‘You couldn’t— Are you concussed or something?’ The anger was fading now, worry quickly replacing it.