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‘Well, nothing, obviously, but I’m just trying to stop you making a serious mistake in the heat of the moment.’
‘My mistake was marrying your son in the first place!’
‘I admit that James has behaved appallingly, and I told him so in no uncertain terms when he pitched up at my door last night and told me you’d thrown him out.’
So that’s where he went. Maybe Becky didn’t let him in either. I feel a sense of grim satisfaction at the thought.
‘I can see that leaving him seems like an attractive prospect right now,’ Rosalind is continuing, ‘but have you considered what you’rereallygoing back to? You won’t be able to just pick up your old life as if nothing has changed; the world has moved on and you’re not the same person. Your friends will be busy with their own lives, their husbands, and children. Your job will have been filled. The world is a cruel place for a thirty-something divorcee. Yes, James has been an idiot, but he loves you. You have a home and a life here.’
‘And that’s enough, is it? I’m supposed to turn a blind eye, like you did, while he merrily sleeps with whomever he likes?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop being so bloody naïve! This is a temper tantrum, nothing more. When you calm down, you’ll realise that your best chance of happiness is here with James. Go into your kitchen and throw a few pots and pans if it makes you feel better. But, once you’ve got it out of your system, I want you to have a good hard think about what you’ve got here.’
‘And what do I have here? You’ve already made it perfectly clear that you don’t think I’m good enough for him, but you’re wrong. I’m way too good for him. Hell, even bloody Becky is too good for him! And as for you? I couldn’t care less what you think any more. So do me a favour and get the hell out of my face. If I never have to see you again, it will be too soon. Do you understand?’
The expression on Rosalind’s face is almost comical. She’s opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish, but no sound is coming out. Beside her, James just looks dejected.
Eventually, she finds her voice.
‘You ungrateful little bitch,’ she hisses. ‘I have never, ever been spoken to like that before. How dare you—’
I’ve heard enough.
‘Rosalind, do me a favour and just fuck off, would you?’ I tell her, and shut the door.
12
Once I’ve closed the door and locked it again, I lean against it for a while, waiting for my heart rate and breathing to settle. I think I can safely assume I won’t be getting a Christmas card from Rosalind, and the thought makes me giggle slightly hysterically. I’m not a particularly confrontational person, but she just pushed me over the edge. It’s a shame Di wasn’t here; she’d have loved it. Once my breathing is back to some sort of normality, I go back upstairs to check, and I’m delighted to see they’ve gone. The dogs obviously went off with James as they usually do, so the cottage is deathly quiet. I do my final pass through but there’s nothing else I want to take so I carefully open the front door and start loading the car. I’m hyper-alert, like a rabbit on the lookout for danger, but there’s no sign of either James or Rosalind. Even Tony is nowhere to be seen.
It takes several trips to get everything out of the house, but eventually it’s done. I leave my keys on the table in the hall, but then I’m paralysed with indecision. I can’t work out whether to leave my wedding ring or not. In the end I decide to take it with me; James will only sell it if I leave it behind, and I don’t want him to benefit in any way from my departure. I climb into the cab and start the engine. As I set off down the track, an awful thought occurs to me: what if James is lying in wait and he’s going to try to cut me off, or he’s blocked the track with his truck? The Land Rover is pretty sturdy, but his truck is too, and I don’t think I’ll have the nerve to try to ram him out of the way. My heart is in my mouth as I bump down the track, and it’s only when I’m on the road and the farm sign is receding from view that I realise I’ve been holding my breath.
I have no trouble withdrawing the cash at the Post Office, and I offer a prayer of thanks to the God I’m still not entirely sure I believe in. Any guilt I might feel about taking money out of our account after I’ve left is assuaged by the realisation that my necklace is probably paying for it. The Land Rover needs diesel, but I reckon I have enough to get me to an anonymous station near Exeter, rather than filling up at the petrol station a short distance from the village where they know everyone and will want to chew the fat about where I’m going and how long for. I once had a conversation with Gary, who owns the site, about the best way to get to Barnstaple and I never want to repeat the experience.
For once, I’m not cursing the Land Rover for how horrible it is to drive. Just keeping it pointing in the right direction is a full-time job because the steering is so vague, and it takes a special technique to change gear without crunching the gearbox, so I don’t have a lot of mental space to contemplate the collapse of my marriage. I narrowly avoid sideswiping something very shiny and new looking on the outskirts of Exeter, and I’m already wondering if I’m being over-optimistic about getting all the way to East Sussex when I pull into a petrol station to fill up. The reality is that the Land Rover really isn’t up to the journey, but it’s not as if I had a selection of comfortable cars to choose from, is it? I chance my luck and attempt to pay for the fuel with my debit card, and I’m slightly dizzy with excitement when the payment goes through with no issues. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the car, I’m in a good state to make it. I don’t have any breakdown cover (too expensive), so I will be in serious trouble if anything falls off or stops working.
As I pick up the A30 to leave Exeter behind, I glance at the navigation app on my phone. It’s confidently predicting that it will take me another five hours to reach my parents’ house. I also notice that there’s a message from James. That will have to wait until my next stop; there’s no way I can deal with keeping the Land Rover on the road and his text message at the same time and, if I’m honest, I’m not that interested in what he has to say anyway. It’s a beautiful crisp winter’s day and, as the distance builds between me and the farm, my mood becomes ever more optimistic. Although I’m not on the motorway, this is a busy A road and queues quickly form behind me, so I pull over whenever I can to let the faster moving traffic pass. Despite that, I’m making reasonable time, and the navigation app is predicting that I will arrive at my parents at around half past three, which means it will still be light.
Somewhere between Sherborne and Shaftesbury, I become aware that something isn’t quite right with the Land Rover. The handling has become even more wayward than usual and there’s a weird rumbling coming from the back. I slow down, doubtless frustrating the queue behind me even more, and pull into the first lay-by I see. It doesn’t take me long to find the problem; one of the rear tyres has obviously had a puncture because it’s almost completely flat. With a sigh, I set about retrieving the jack and the tools from the boot. Tony’s tuition is about to be put to the test. I slip into the overalls that he insisted I keep in the car for just such an occasion, and which he’d made me wear during every car maintenance session that we had. He always said it was to protect my clothes, but I think he just liked the sight of a woman in overalls. I lay the tools on the ground in order, to make sure I’ve got what I need, and then I undo the bolts holding the spare wheel on to the back door and try to lift it off the holder.
Bloody hell, who knew a wheel could be so heavy? It takes me a couple of goes to grip it in such a way that I can actually lift it. I’m puffing my cheeks out like a weightlifter as I hug the wheel into my chest to stop it toppling me over, bending my knees to lower it to the ground. I just hope I’ll be able to pick it up again when the time comes. Remembering what Tony told me, the next step is to loosen the nuts on the wheel I want to change. He made sure I had a special extending wheel brace so that I could undo even the tightest nuts, but it’s still a struggle. By the time they’re all loose, I can feel the sweat running down my back, even though it’s pretty cold out here.
Thankfully, things start to get a bit easier from this point. I chock the wheels and jack up the car before undoing the nuts completely and pulling off the wheel. I use the same cuddling technique to wrestle the new one into place, doing up the bolts as fast as I can before it falls off the hub. By the time I’ve lowered the car, tightened the nuts, and fought the old wheel on to the carrier at the back, I can feel my hair clinging to my scalp and I’m sweating profusely. My overalls are also filthy, so maybe Tony had a point after all. I do, however, feel a massive sense of achievement, although my arms feel shaky from the exertion. Tony may be a lecherous old pervert, but I’m immensely grateful to him for showing me what to do and making sure I had the right tools. I can’t be bothered to take off the overalls, so I climb back behind the wheel and set off once more. The navigation app has updated my time of arrival to four o’clock, so I’ve amazingly only lost half an hour.
By the time I reach Salisbury, it’s after lunchtime and I’m starving. This presents a dilemma. I could stop somewhere for a hot meal, or I could just grab a sandwich from a petrol station and keep going. I really fancy something hot, especially after my unexpected workout, but stopping will only delay me more, and I don’t want to drive this thing in the dark any further than I have to. In the end, practicality wins out and I stop at a petrol station with an M&S store, walk in, and grab a sandwich, a packet of crisps, and a diet Coke. The cashier looks at me curiously while I pay, but I imagine that’s just because of my filthy overalls. Back at the car, I wolf them down as fast as I can before hitting the road again. Before long I’m past Winchester and Petersfield, and then the app is telling me I have less than an hour to go. The light is starting to fade, but I’ve only got another twenty miles. I start fantasising about a hot bath and maybe a glass or two of wine.
At last, the gates of my parents’ house come into view. Darkness has pretty much fallen as I enter the access code on the keypad. Nothing happens. I should have thought of this; they change the code regularly and I don’t have the latest one. I press the intercom button instead and, after a pause, a man’s voice answers. It’s Gerald, the groundsman.
‘Beresford-Smith residence, how can I help you?’ he asks.
‘Gerald, it’s Sophie. Can you let me in?’
‘We aren’t expecting you, are we?’ He sounds confused, as if I might be an impostor simply because I’ve turned up unannounced.
‘No, it’s…erm… it’s a surprise!’ I tell him.
There’s a long pause while he obviously digests this information. I love Gerald; he’s a very gentle human being, but he’s not one for doing anything unless he’s thought it through completely. Eventually, he speaks again.
‘Well, you’d better come in then, I suppose,’ he says, and the gates silently swing open.
