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Chapter 31
Belinda. Oh no, I thought this was all going a bit too well. It’s like those movies where it’s all wrapping up nicely, but there’s still fifteen minutes to go; you know the bad guy they conked over the head with a saucepan is going to stand up and stab someone at the last minute.
‘Hi,’ says Belinda, giving us both a wave. ‘Well, aren’t you looking well, Ted? Now I can see why.’ She nods towards me.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ted asks, still standing motionless in the middle of the lawn.
Belinda gives a delicate shrug, and I notice she has the most amazing shoulder bones. I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed someone’s shoulder bones before, but hers are exquisite.
‘After what you said on the phone, I wanted to come and see Gerry. Plus, I figured I could bring the divorce papers in person. Is Gerry not here?’ She walks around the patio table, her hips moving in this sultry, hypnotic way.
‘He’s already gone to Acrebrooke.’
‘He’ll hate it there,’ says Belinda. ‘I can’t imagine him in a home.’
I feel a twinge of jealousy that she knows Ted’s family so much better than I do, that she knows what Gerry might or might not like. Ted is still standing frozen, staring at Belinda as though she might be an apparition. She walks over to him and kisses him on each cheek, then extends her hand to me.
‘I’m Belinda, you must be the new girl.’ She smirks knowingly, and I feel myself bristle. She says it as though I’m the new shop girl, wanting to remind me: He’s known you five minutes, but he loved me for almost a decade.
‘You should have called first,’ says Ted, clearing his throat.
‘I tried; the landline has been cut off,’ she looks down at her feet, eyelids fluttering, ‘and I’m afraid I had to erase your mobile number when I left, in case I called in a moment of weakness, Teddy.’
Teddy?Ted is not a Teddy. I look at Ted; his eyes are closed. When he opens them, he glances across at me and, maybe I’m imagining it, but I can tell he doesn’t want me here for this.
‘Shall I be mother and make tea?’ Belinda offers, biting her impossibly bee-stung lower lip.
‘I should leave you to it,’ I say, waving a hand between them.
‘No,’ Ted says firmly, ‘there’ll be nothing said you can’t hear. I thought we said everything on the phone, Bell?’
He calls her Bell. A whole history no one else will ever share. Belinda turns her attention to me and gives me a wicked smile.
‘She’s very young.’ I feel my skin grow hot and my eyes drop to the ground. She laughs. ‘I taught him everything he knows, so you can thank me later.’
‘Bell, stop it,’ Ted growls.
‘Sorry,’ Belinda sighs and smiles. ‘You know I’m only teasing.’ Then she rolls her eyes.
It’s too much. I can’t be here any longer; I’ll cry, and that will make me look like a pathetic little girl next to this confident, formidable woman.
‘I’m going to go,’ I say, turning to walk up the hill.
‘Don’t,’ Ted says, his eyes full of pain, but I know me being here will just make this more difficult for him.
‘Honestly, it’s fine, I need to make some calls anyway. I’ll catch up with you later.’ I attempt my best nonchalant smile, like I find myself in this kind of love triangle every day of the week. Now I come to think of it, I guess I was sort of in a love triangle with Jasper and Ted … Maybe I do find myself in a lot of love triangles. Despite feeling conflicted, I definitely preferred being the one in the middle. Better to be the one choosing than the person someone chooses between, especially when the competition looks like a combination of Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie.
I pick up both my phones from just inside the porch and then try to stop myself from glancing back at the lawn, but I can’t. They’re in the middle of the garden hugging; Ted’s shoulders are rising and falling as though he might be crying. I shouldn’t have turned around; now I feel like my feet have been whisked from beneath me by an undercurrent, and I’m being pulled, powerless, out to sea, away from my Ted-shaped shore. My heart breaks a little for Ted, too – he was so lost, not knowing where she’d gone, and now here she is, in his garden, two days after he finally took off his ring.
As soon as I’m far enough away from the house, I furiously blink my eyes, determined not to cry. The light is on in the workshop. As I knock gently on the open door, Ilídio turns off the electric sander he is working with.
‘Laura, what’s wrong?’ he asks, his face full of concern.
‘Nothing,’ I say, shaking my head firmly, ‘can I just sit in here for a bit?’
‘Of course,’ he says, putting down his tools and cracking his knuckles, and there’s something strangely reassuring about the sound. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
The comfort of a kettle. And then I start thinking that maybe it’s quite nice to give your kettle a nickname, especially if you live alone, and maybe Aunt Monica is on to something. I might name my own kettle – Kevin, perhaps. Then I sit, and I make jewellery, and I try not to think about the man of my dreams, talking to the woman he loved, only a few hundred yards away.
