‘Can you shift some tables?’
‘Just point me in the right direction.’
Two hours later, only half an hour late, we had a hot buffet for sixty guests, a room decorated with a box of leftovers from a wedding a month before, a free glass of bubbly for anyone who wanted it, and a party saved by the skin of its teeth.
The next day, I turned up at work to find a generous bonus, no Izzy and a promotion. Later on that afternoon, I also received a ridiculously flamboyant bouquet from Perry Upperton. The card read,
You blew my mind last night. I’d like to take you out to show my appreciation. Call me.
And a business card.
I called using the bar phone and left a brief message of thanks and you’re welcome, just doing my job.
At twenty-three, I had never dated. Not since him. And that could hardly be described as dating. For multiple reasons, I felt terrified of any commitment other than the one made to myself to never trust anybody, ever. It made for a lonely life, but I was more than used to being alone. Lonely was safe. Safe from shame, rejection and abuse. I knew that the type of man I might want, did not want women like me.
I certainly had no interest in going for dinner with the club lothario.
Although I had been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to arrange furniture and flowers rather than yell at other people to do it.
Perry showed up later that week. He had booked a table for two in the restaurant. There you go, I thought; he’s moved on to the next poor girl.
The two included me.
I politely declined, due to working.
He had checked. My shift finished at eight.
I declined again. I was tired and had some things to do. At eight-fifteen, Perry’s car pulled up alongside me at the bottom of the sweeping HCC driveway as I made my way home. He crawled along for a couple of hundred metres, using all his charm to try and persuade me to accept a lift. He seemed pretty charming. Funny, and self-deprecating. No mention of the fact I was walking two miles home from work because I couldn’t afford a car, whereas his racing green convertible probably cost more than my house.
I climbed over the stile that led to the shortcut through Top Woods, and politely declined once more.
This carried on for a couple of months until he finally got the message – or so I thought. Intrigued and spurred on by the rare resistance to his attention, Perry tried another strategy. He ceased the compliments, the flowers, and the dinner invitations and instead took to sitting on a bar stool and making conversation.
A few more months went by and, so subtly I hadn’t quite noticed it happening, we became friends.
Perry was interesting, and nice. He also made me laugh – not something I did often or easily. Gradually, over the weeks, he chipped away at my armour, so when he asked me to be his plus one at a wedding, making the very valid point that we would have a fun evening together, I accepted.
Three months later, he proposed, in a fairly casual way during a moonlit walk along the River Trent.
I laughed it off and said no.
The next four times he asked me, I said no.
The sixth time, nearly a year into our relationship, when he got down on one knee and produced the billion-carat diamond ring, I promised to think about it. I thought about it for all of half a day before deciding to decline once more.
Then I got the flu. And three days later, Sam took a cocktail of killer substances strong enough to knock him into a coma.
8
Mid-October, at the end of my tether and worried sick about Sam, who seemed to be shrivelling before my eyes, I called the police station where Gwynne had been stationed all those years ago. The Inspector was in a meeting. Could she call me back?
I left my name and number. Shoving on a pair of trainers, my fingers barely managing to tie the laces, I snatched my rucksack from a peg by the front door and launched myself down the front path, automatically turning right towards the woods. I knew these footpaths well. HCC was situated 2.2 miles from my front door. Not being the kind of place whose customers use public transport, it was quicker (and cheaper) to walk cross-country than take the intermittent bus to the next village and hike the hill the rest of the way. Over the three years I had worked there, I had grown to love walking. Between long shifts and looking after Sam, the walk to work became my headspace, a chance to relieve pressure, burn up stress or simply forget about everything but the hum of summer bees, the spring blossom decorating the hedgerows, the frost sparkling on bare branches, the crunch of nuts beneath my feet.
I became no one out here. Neutral and nameless. The robin who perched on the fence post didn’t care who I was or what I had done. The squirrels dancing up the oak trees gave not a chestnut if I spent my last penny on my brother’s counselling, then ended up using the session myself when he failed to show up. No snail, butterfly or toad derided my lack of education, plans, prospects. Neither did they taunt me about the secrets I kept or the shame I carried. Sometimes, on days when the loneliness threatened to crush my heart altogether, I would walk and walk, and for those long hours, the name I called myself was Rachel.
Today, I turned away from the usual route across the fields to HCC. Instead, I veered off towards the river, where a muddy path ran along the water’s edge for a mile or so. The trees along the riverbank showed the first signs of an unseasonably late autumn, flecks of yellow and brown dancing among the canopy of green above my head. I shrugged off my jacket and wrapped it around my waist, pausing to drink from the bottle of water in my bag. As my feet paced the dry earth, I soaked up the sounds of the river splashing over rocks, the chirrups of the birds, the faint hum of a tractor sowing winter crops on the ridge. A large stick bounced in the current alongside me, bumping into rocks and spinning through patches of vegetation. I slowed to match its pace, waiting when it became temporarily snared on a fallen branch or caught in the weeds at the edge of the bank, hurrying when a stretch of faster current sent it careening smoothly downstream.
After a while, it disappeared under the shadow of a bridge and didn’t come out the other side.
