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19
Rebecca
Holborn tube was closed due to overcrowding and so when I saw a number 168 bus trundling up Kingsway, I jumped on it without hesitation. It was raining, so I’d rather be on a rammed bus than waiting in the cold and wet, even it was travelling agonisingly slowly.
I found a window seat on the top deck and got out my phone, flicking through it absent-mindedly. The bus juddered on, stopping and starting, stopping and starting. I smeared my hand across the fogged-up window so I could see out. It was tipping it down now, puddles already forming in the dips in the roads, car wheels churning up water, commuters dashing across the road, headlights flaring. I rested my head against the window, watching sparkling raindrops run down the pane.
We pulled into the concrete plaza otherwise known as Euston Station, which looked bleaker than ever tonight. When I looked down, there was a sea of umbrellas bobbing about on the pavement. The driver made an announcement that there were seats free upstairs, which meant that downstairs it was heaving. Sure enough, up piled about thirty soaking-wet passengers, the largest of whom – a six-foot-something guy in an enormous puffa jacket – threw himself down next to me, almost bouncing me off my seat. His drenched sleeve pressed against my elbow and I shimmied as far as I could to the right, attempting to get away from his soggy, quilted polyester, but to no avail.
Since the journey was already pretty unpleasant, for some bizarre reason I thought I’d add insult to injury by looking back at my last few message exchanges with Dan. It had been over a year now since he’d moved out, but I hadn’t forgotten anything about the moment it happened. It kept playing over and over again in my mind. I wanted to learn from it or, more precisely, make sure it never happened again.
I’d been home from work nearly an hour that evening in December and had been in the kitchen when he arrived home. He’d texted to say he was running late, and so I’d lit a candle, opened a bottle of wine and had laid out two glasses on the coffee table in the lounge. He could get tetchy after a long day in the office, a City job that made him quite a lot of money but not one of those massive six-figure sums you read about. He drove a BMW and he wore nice suits and he’d treated me to a couple of city breaks. Rome had been lovely, and Seville the summer before. He was – in some ways – a proper grown-up; a ‘real man’ as my Aunty Carol had once described him. As opposed to what, I’d always been tempted to ask her?
He’d let himself through the door, looking paler than usual, his face all drawn, and I’d thought it must just be because he was exhausted. He kissed me like he always did and I pulled him close to me.
‘Everything OK?’ I asked, looking into his eyes.
He nodded, shifting his gaze to the chopping board.
‘Homemade moussaka and salad,’ I said, waving my hand at the aubergines on the chopping board. I was making an effort to cook more and was starting to quite enjoy it. ‘There’s wine open in the lounge. Looks like you could do with a glass.’
‘Can we talk, Becs?’ he said.
I picked up a tea towel to wipe my hands.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But then I need to get the cheese sauce on.’
He took my hand and led me into the lounge, kicking off his shoes. His coat was still on, which seemed odd, as though he wasn’t planning to stay.
We sat on the sofa and I started to feel a bit sick. I got the overwhelming sense that whatever he was about to say, it wasn’t going to be good. He kept hold of my hand and put it on his knee, placing both of his hands over it. Was it something to do with work? Had he been fired? Made redundant? He’d said they were having to get rid of people. Whatever it was, we’d cope. I could cover the rent for a bit, just about, he didn’t need to be worried about telling me.
‘What is it?’ I asked him gently.
He hung his head. ‘I don’t know how to say this.’
‘Tell me.’
He pulled his hands away, raking them through his hair. ‘You know Karen?’
‘Yes.’
Karen was his new-ish work colleague. They’d clashed at first, but then they’d had a couple of work nights out and he’d said she wasn’t as bad as he’d first thought. I’d met her myself – once when I popped into the office to drop off some papers we needed to sign to secure the flat and once at somebody’s birthday drinks. She was Australian – sporty-looking, confident. I’d warmed to her immediately.
‘What about her?’ I asked him.
A light popped on in the apartment opposite. The guy who lived there had just got in from work. I watched him take his jacket off, turn on the TV.
‘I’ve been talking to her a bit recently,’ said Dan.
I laughed, I didn’t know why. Nerves, I supposed.
‘We’ve been going out for lunch a bit. Spending some time together.’
I poured us both a glass of wine, noticing how my hand was shaking so much I slopped it over the side. ‘And?’
He groaned. ‘I feel so fucking bad about all of this, Becs, honestly I do.’
I looked up at the ceiling, willing myself not to cry because I knew what was coming, of course I did. ‘Bad about what, Dan?’
