AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PART ONE
First Set
CHAPTER ONE
‘We need to talk,’ said Hannah, pulling the pin out of each word and tossing it over the furniture like a tiny grenade. She hovered in the doorway between the lounge and the kitchen, wondering if any phrase in the English language was a bigger red flag for impending doom. Nothing good ever followedwe need to talk.
Hannah waited for the explosion to go off, staring at the back of Graham’s head on the teal sofa. There was no indication that he’d felt the impact, or in fact that he’d heard her speak at all. His gaze remained firmly fixed on the rugby match playing on TV, and the only sign that he wasn’t dead was a brief lifting of his right arm in a half-hearted wave.
Her gaze shifted to his feet on the coffee table, and the big toe protruding through a hole in one of his socks. A wave of annoyance washed over her – he was thirty-two years old, for goodness’ sake. Why couldn’t he sew it up, or better yet, buy a new pair? Presumably he was waiting for her to do it, and after fourteen years of compensating for his abundant flaws, it felt like the sock that broke the camel’s back.
‘Hey, Han,’ he said airily, still not turning to look at her. ‘I saw you got some chicken out for dinner – was I supposed to do something with that?’
‘We talked about it yesterday,’ said Hannah through gritted teeth. ‘You were going to make a curry.’
‘Yeah, that’s not happening,’ said Graham. ‘Oh, come on, that was obviously a knock-on. This referee is either blind or stupid.’
‘So what are you making instead?’ Hannah didn’t actually want dinner with Graham; right now the thought of watching him eat made her feel sick. But that wasn’t the point.
‘We can still have a curry, I’ll just get it Deliverooed.’
‘We had takeaway pizza on Tuesday. You were supposed to cook then, too.’
Reluctantly, Graham dragged his eyes away from the TV and glanced round to offer a hard stare. ‘Han, don’t nag, OK? I want to watch this, and then I want to eat. If you want to cook, feel free. But if it’s my turn to do dinner you don’t get to decide where it comes from.’
Graham’s attention drifted back to the thirty men trampling through her collapsed scrum of a marriage. Hannah looked at the protruding toe again, pink and shiny like a newborn vole. His toenails needed cutting.
‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’ She waited nervously, not entirely sure whether she’d said those words out loud, or just in her head.
‘Sure,’ Graham replied absently, raking at his neck with his fingernails. ‘Come on, are you BLIND? That was obviously a high tackle.’
‘Great, so let’s agree to get divorced as soon as possible.’ OK, that was definitely out loud. The grenades clearly hadn’t worked, so she imagined the words bobbing across the room like helium balloons, then bonking him repeatedly on the head.
Graham vented his frustration at the TV in a series of incoherent noises, then finally turned to face her. ‘This is the worst match I’ve ever watched. What did you say?’
Hannah held his gaze, still leaning against the doorframe. ‘I said I don’t want to be married to you any more, and we should get divorced as soon as possible.’
‘What the . . .?’ The colour drained from Graham’s face. ‘Where did that come from?’ He reached out for the remote and finally silenced the TV, almost falling over in his haste to stand up. He hurried around the end of the sofa and made a move towards her, then changed his mind, like she might have lethal objects hidden about her person. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes,’ said Hannah, swallowing hard to stop her voice from wavering. ‘You’re cheating on me, for starters, so clearly you don’t love me. But aside from that, I don’t love you either. So yes, Graham, I’m entirely serious.’
His face turned from ghostly white to bright red, like he’d pulsed it in a blender. ‘What . . .? How . . .? I don’t . . .’
‘You’ve been sleeping with Lucy from your office for six months,’ said Hannah, her jaw clenched. ‘She called me earlier to tell me she’s now four months pregnant and apparently you’re being awful about it.’
‘I . . .’ spluttered Graham, who was now visibly sweating. ‘Lucy’s not very stable, she’s . . .’
Hannah held up a hand to silence him. ‘She gave me dates and times and forwarded me text messages.’ She furiously blinked away the tears as she thought about the texts Lucy had sent her; some featuring endearments Graham had once used for her, and others that were considerably more . . . colourful. The kind of words that she couldn’t even say in her head without fear of being struck by lightning.
Graham retreated behind the sofa, rubbing his hands across his face. ‘Look, Han,’ he said, panic bubbling in his voice. ‘I know it looks bad, but it’s not what you think.’
Hannah gave a hollow laugh, tucking her hands under her armpits to hide the shaking. She needed to get out of here. ‘I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what I think. So I’m going to Sainsbury’s to get myself something for dinner, and I’d like you to be packed and gone by the time I get back.’
‘But—’ Hannah turned to leave, her heart pounding in her ears and bile rising in her throat. ‘Hannah!’ he called one last time, but he didn’t follow.
‘Are you OK?’ said a man’s voice, his hand reaching out to gently touch Hannah’s arm. She jumped and looked up. He was only in his early twenties, not much older than her brother Luke. Wearing a Sainsbury’s maroon and orange jacket with a badge that said ‘Mo’.
‘Sorry?’ Hannah looked around, momentarily blinded by the supermarket lighting.
