AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 23
I hugged the canal, which was beautifully lit by the warm, orange glow beaming out of the windows of the canal houses. Bobbing on the water was a row of houseboats, some of them huge, modern structures that must have cost tens of thousands of pounds, some more traditional, painted in muted colours that I couldn’t quite make out under the shadows of the trees. Groups of people sat on the edge of the water, swigging from beer bottles, hanging their feet over the edge.
I spotted a phone box and reluctantly went inside, tiptoeing over the newspapers and crisp wrappers covering the ground. I scrabbled in my purse for some coins and then wiped the handset on the hem of my dress. Because I didn’t know who else to call, I dialled Mum and Tony’s home number. My stomach turned at the prospect of explaining what had happened. She’d be disappointed in me, no doubt, would assume that I was the one to blame, because how could the wonderful Si be at fault? I’d never turned to her in a crisis before, because she’d made it clear very early on that she couldn’t handle my ‘emotional outbursts’– i.e. any exploration of feelings at all. And on the odd occasion she did try, she’d end up saying something to make the situation worse. I’d learned to keep things from her, preferring to pretend that I was coasting happily through life, which Mum seemed easily and conveniently to accept.
While I listened to the dialling tone I leaned my shoulder against the smeared glass of the phone box, realising that for the first time in years, nobody was expecting me to be anywhere. And that might have felt terrifying once, being alone in a city I didn’t know, without the safety net of Si or Ellie or any of the other people I’d leaned on over the years, but I felt strangely liberated. A bit foggy-headed, completely exhausted, but with the inner conviction that whatever happened, I would be able to cope.
‘Hello?’ said Mum, a touch of panic in her voice. It would be 6.30 in England. She’d be having tea, watching Britain’s Got Talent or some equally middle-of-the-road light entertainment show.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, cradling the receiver between my shoulder and my chin whilst unzipping my suitcase and pulling out the first warm thing I could find: Léo’s hoodie. I slipped it on, burying my face inside the shoulder of it, inhaling the scent of him.
‘My God, we’ve been out of our heads with worry, here,’ said Mum. ‘Why haven’t you called us? I’ve been texting you like mad.’
‘My phone got stolen in Paris,’ I said. ‘Remember?’
‘That explains it!’ announced Mum. ‘I don’t know how I managed to forget that.’
I sighed, listening while she relayed the whole thing to Tony.
‘Did you make it to the wedding, then?’ she asked.
‘I made it.’
And then I dropped the bombshell, got it out there before I bottled it. I didn’t want these filtered relationships any more, ones where I second-guessed what people were thinking, what it was they needed. Because I had proof now that life did not work that way. Even by doing what I’d thought was the right thing, by becoming what I’d thought Si wanted me to be, it had still gone wrong in the end. I may as well show people who I really was; at least then, if nothing else, I’d be being true to myself.
‘I’ve left Si, Mum.’
There was silence, for what seemed like an age. A group of lads wearing cowboy hats and T-shirts with someone’s photo on staggered past. One of them banged on the window and waved and I wiggled my fingers back.
‘Mum, are you still there?’
‘What do you mean, left him?’
I would have to tell her straight. There was no easy way to do it. She adored Si and she was going to be gutted, however I sugar-coated it. She, too, had thought Si was the perfect man; the answer to all my prayers and hers. But of course, the glaringly obvious fact that we’d both been missing was that nobody could ever be perfect. And also, that nobody could sort my life out for me except me. And that was, starting from this very moment, in this grimy phone box in the middle of Amsterdam, what I fully intended to do.
‘He’s been fired from work,’ I told her. ‘Weeks ago, without telling me. For punching his line manager at a party. Calling him names. Being threatening, all that.’
I heard her coughing, gulping down mouthfuls of the always-stale water I knew she kept on the coffee table.
‘What? No, Hannah, no. He couldn’t have done all that,’ she said eventually.
It would have been the last thing she’d expected of him; it was the last thing any of us would have imagined.
‘Are you sure you haven’t got it wrong?’ she asked. ‘You know, read too much into things? Have you actually spoken to him about it, Hannah? Because I’m sure he’d put you straight, tell you it’s all been a silly mistake.’
‘It’s true, Mum. He told me himself.’
I heard Mum sniffing and wondered whether she was tearful or something, which would have been odd, since that would require her to have actual feelings on my behalf.
‘We thought he was going to ask you to marry him,’ she said, her voice all quivery.
I pinched the top of my nose. ‘Honestly, Mum, I’m not entirely sure that our relationship was everything I thought it was.’
I thought briefly of Léo, who I’d dismissed initially for being rude and brash and full of himself, which (apart from the rude bit) couldn’t have been further from the truth. You had to get to know people. You had to open yourselves up to them, so that they could do the same.
‘Si loves you, Hannah, I know he does.’
‘But I don’t think he understands me. Not in the way I’ve always wanted someone to.’
