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As if reading her mind, Jolene added, ‘Some of the best relationships are with those we meet in unexpected circumstances. ThinkBrief Encounter, the old movie where they first meet at a train station.’
‘I’ve never watched it.’
‘Well, maybe you should.’
‘Do they end up together – the couple?’
‘No.’
Freya brightened. ‘Well, in that case, I’ll watch it.’ She didn’t admit that there might be a tiny grain of truth in what her best friend was saying. They’d only just met, but every time she thought of Tarek, she felt a flutter in her tummy. What was that? Freya decided she would rather not think about it – or him.
She changed the subject. ‘I think my dad is having an affair.’
‘You’ve got to be joking. Did he tell you that?’
Freya glanced at the phone she’d been holding a few minutes ago, hoping to overhear her dad’s conversation. She could feel her face growing hot at the thought. ‘No.’
‘Then how …?’
‘I overheard him speaking to a woman on the phone this morning. Somebody called Wendy.’
Jolene went quiet. ‘I don’t think you should jump to conclusions.’
Freya lowered her voice and repeated what she’d heard her dad say on the phone.
‘Or maybe you should,’ quipped Jolene, when her best friend had finished. ‘Your parents don’t seem the type.’
Jolene had met Freya’s parents at a rather awkward dinner, when it had turned out they were both under the impression that Freya had brought Jolene home to meet them because Jolene was her girlfriend. Jolene had thought it was hilarious; Freya not so much. She didn’t have anything against being gay, and it had been nice for Jolene to come round to her house for a change, but she had been taken aback that her parents had made that mistake; as though they didn’t really know her. Perhaps she didn’t know her parents quite as well as she thought she did, either. Freya wished she hadn’t mentioned what she’d overheard that morning.
‘I’ll get ready now and make it into work by nine,’ she said.
‘Great. I’ll see you there, and you can tell me more about that phone call.’
Freya sighed as she ended the call. She shouldn’t have brought it up. She slipped the phone in the pocket of her pyjamas and eyed the house phone. She listened for a moment. Her dad was still upstairs. She could faintly hear the shower running in the bathroom. If she didn’t do it now, she might not get another chance.
Freya picked up the receiver, punched in four digits, and listened once again to the details of the last call from a woman called Wendy. She entered the number on her mobile phone. When she had finished, she replaced the handset and stood there biting a fingernail, staring at the phone number. She didn’t recognise the area code.
She walked out of the lounge and crossed the hallway into the kitchen, spotting the cup of coffee that Theo had left for her on the kitchen counter. She took it over to the table by the window, her bed socks sliding on the smooth tiled floor. Her parents’ house had draughty wooden sash windows. For years they’d planned to install secondary glazing, but had never got around to it. Freya didn’t mind. She loved the old red-brick double-fronted house, with its ivy creeping up one side of the doorframe. It was set back from the road with a small front garden bordered by a low red-brick wall. In the middle of the small patch of grass was a cherry tree. In the summer, it provided welcome shade from the sun coming into the kitchen in the afternoon. In the spring, the tree had beautiful pale pink blossoms.
She stared out of the window at the bare branches, wishing things could go back to the way they had been.Perhaps the buyers will pull out, she thought hopefully. She didn’t want to return to live in an apartment on the outskirts of Cambridge; the cottage they were buying in Grantchester, although small, was just perfect. But even so, it came at a price – her parents selling up.
Freya picked up her cup of coffee and stared at the phone number. Who had called her dad? Who was the woman called Wendy?
Freya took a deep breath, put her coffee down and tapped the phone icon to dial the number.
‘The Guest House at Shingle Cove. How may I help?’
Freya’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, er …’ She had not expected to hear a young woman’s voice. ‘Are you the hotel in Weymouth?’ Freya was thinking on her feet, plucking something out of thin air.And how do you know my dad?she felt like asking. But something held her back.
‘I’m afraid not. We’re on the Suffolk Coast, near Dunwich. I think you have the wrong guest house.’
Freya hurriedly thanked her, said goodbye, and hung up. A horrible thought occurred to her; was this why her dad was so enthusiastic about selling up? Maybe it wasn’t about helping his only child to get on the property ladder. Were her mum and dad splitting up? Was her dad intending to set up home with this person called Wendy, and had her mum found out? Freya bit her lower lip, wondering what to do. She was staring at her phone when a text came through. It was Jolene checking she was still going in to work.
Freya texted back. She was definitely going in, but she had something else on her mind other than the new display or Tarek – Freya wanted Jolene’s advice. If her mum wasn’t back in a day or two, Freya was thinking should she take a few days off work, go to the guest house herself, confront this Wendy and tell her to stay away from her dad.
Chapter 22
‘Is everything all right, Freya?’
