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‘I’m leaving you,’ Polly said, no regret, no recrimination in her voice; it was delivered as a straight fact. ‘I wanted to tell you to your face.’
Chris stood there arms akimbo, his expression purewhat the hell now?‘Is this because I haven’t booked a cruise or chucked presents at you since you’ve come home?’
‘No, Chris.’ It was because he’d been with her for eight years and he didn’t know how she took a cup of tea or that she didn’t like dark chocolate and he dumped things expecting her to shift them. It was because he’d never walked with her barefoot across sand or held his arm out for her to link. And it was because he had never taken her face between his hands. She was leaving him because he didn’t see that thelittle things were important. The bad little things and the good little things.
‘Polly, love…’ a sigh of exasperation from someone who absolutely didn’t need this after a hard day’s graft. ‘… See sense. Give it time for us to get back to how we were. I know you can’t remember properly but, trust me, it was good.’
‘I can remember. We are already back to how we were, Chris, and it really wasn’t.’
‘Okay,’ a note of desperation in his voice. ‘Let’s get married then, if that makes you feel more… wanted. Properly this time. You pick your own frock and we’ll go away and do it, just you and me.’
‘No, Chris.’ She shook her head slowly.
‘Look, I’ll go upstairs and change and then I’ll come down and we’ll talk. Okay? I’ll be five minutes if that. You put the kettle on, Polly.’
He raced up the stairs but she wasn’t fooled by his urgency. He didn’t want her, he wanted someone,anyonewho would warm up the house with their living presence without having to give back anything in return but illusory promises and procrastinations. Chris was one of life’s takers, not a giver like his son, like Marielle and Teddy Bonetti. She wasn’t sure there was a place still waiting for her with them, but there was nothing for her here.
She took out the notepad and pen that lived in the drawer in the table, then she turned to a page and wrote:
Take good care of yourself and be happy, Chris.
Love Polly xx
She tore out the sheet and propped it up against the salt pot, then she stood and took a last look around at the kitchenwith the broken tiles, the missing slat at the window, the incomplete dining set and the big work bag in the middle of the floor.
‘Goodbye, Polly Potter,’ she said.
Then she opened the back door and walked out into the night air.
The longest-serving reporter Bill Thompson retired from theDaily Trumpettoday and was presented with an engraved gold cock by the newspaper owner Sir Basil Stamper, who set him on in the post room on his sixteenth birthday. In an emotional speech, Bill said that every time he looked at it sitting on his sideboard, he would think of Sir Basil.
Chapter 57
Three days later
Teddy dropped the metal shutters, pressed in the alarm code and locked the door behind him. The restaurant had been full tonight and the overflowing tips jar sang a sweet song of satisfaction. Niccolo and Roberto had upped their gesticulations, Sabrina had been right: the customers loved it, repeat bookings were up. He’d warned his cousins though: no broken hearts; it was bad for business. If hehada business for much longer. In saying that, oddly, there had been no builders’ vans causing their obstructions on the road today, no activity at all next door. He’d had to check his calendar to see if he’d missed a bank holiday. It wouldn’t last. They’d be back tomorrow, of that he had little doubt.
He just wanted to get to bed but he’d promised his mum he’d call in on his way past. She had something that would cheer him up, she said. He hoped it was a pint of grappa. He couldn’t stand the stuff actually but it would give his brain blessed oblivion while his body was wondering what the hell his mouth had just let in.
He pulled up outside his mum’s house and knocked. She greeted him withthatlook on her face. The one that said, ‘I hope you aren’t going to be cross with me Teddy, but…’ He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in response.
‘Teddy, I’ve let out the flat again. Bear with me though, I’m doing it properly this time. I thought it might be wise if you met the person straight away so you could suss them out.’
‘Mamma, really, at this time of night?’
Marielle knocked softly on the adjoining door and called through it, ‘Could you just come through my lovely and meet my son. If you’re going to be staying here for any length of time, he’ll need to give his approval.’
The door opened; Teddy prepared himself to smile politely and, because he wasn’t expecting her, it took him a long second to register who she was. And then he cleared the distance between himself and Sabrina in two long strides and picked her up in his big, strong, Italian arms.
There was no grappa needed; he didn’t want any oblivion, he wanted to feast on the sight of her. He sat on his mum’s sofa next to her holding her hands between his own.
‘I have wanted to call you so many times,’ said Teddy. ‘You have been on my mind every day.’
She could have said exactly those words back to him too. They’d had to distance themselves from each other. They were decent people and she’d been in a long-established relationship, although neither of them knew how crumbled and broken it was. She’d needed time and he’d had to give it to her. But she didn’t need it any more.
She’d driven to the Premier Inn in Slattercove the night she left Chris and spent the next couple of days devising a plan of action. She’d been in touch with an estate agent whowas now looking for a house for her to rent, although when she’d rung Marielle and told her she was back, the offer of Little Moon was there for as long as she wanted it. Then Sabrina had emailed Phil Bowery at Yorkshire Eagles to ask if he remembered her. He called her within the hour.
‘Remember you? Of course I remember you, Polly. You’re not looking for a job are you, by any chance?’ He made it that easy. The change of her name she’d explain to him when they met up tomorrow.
