“I should leave you to it,” I say, waving a hand between them.
“No,” Ted says firmly, “there’ll be nothing said you can’t hear. I thought we said everything on the phone, Bell?”
He calls her Bell. A whole history no one else will ever share. Belinda turns her attention to me and gives me a wicked smile.
“She’s very young.” I feel my skin grow hot and my eyes drop to the ground. She laughs. “I taught him everything he knows, so you can thank me later.”
“Bell, stop it.” Ted growls.
“Sorry.” Belinda sighs and smiles. “You know I’m only teasing.” Then she rolls her eyes.
It’s too much. I can’t be here any longer; I’ll cry, and that will make me look like a pathetic little girl next to this confident, formidable woman.
“I’m going to go,” I say, turning to walk up the hill.
“Don’t,” Ted says, his eyes full of pain, but I know me being here will just make this more difficult for him.
“Honestly, it’s fine, I need to make some calls anyway. I’ll catch up with you later.” I attempt my best nonchalant smile, like I find myself in this kind of love triangle every day of the week. Now I come to think of it, I guess I was sort of in a love triangle with Jasper and Ted . . . Maybe I do find myself in a lot of love triangles. Despite feeling conflicted, I definitely preferred being the one in the middle. Better to be the one choosing than the person someone chooses between, especially when the competition looks like a combination of Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie.
I pick up both my phones from just inside the porch and then try to stop myself from glancing back at the lawn, but I can’t. They’re in the middle of the garden hugging; Ted’s shoulders are rising and falling as though he might be crying. I shouldn’t have turned around; now I feel like my feet have been whisked from beneath me by an undercurrent, and I’m being pulled, powerless, out to sea, away from my Ted-shaped shore. My heart breaks a little for Ted too—he was so lost, not knowing where she’d gone, and now here she is, in his garden, two days after he finally took off his ring.
As soon as I’m far enough away from the house, I furiously blink my eyes, determined not to cry. The light is on in the workshop. As I knock gently on the open door, Ilídio turns off the electric sander he is working with.
“Laura, what’s wrong?” he asks, his face full of concern.
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head firmly. “Can I just sit in here for a bit?”
“Of course,” he says, putting down his tools and cracking his knuckles. There’s something strangely reassuring about the sound. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
The comfort of a kettle. And then I start thinking that maybe it’s quite nice to give your kettle a nickname, especially if you live alone, and maybe Aunt Monica is on to something. I might name my own kettle—Kevin, perhaps. Then I sit, and I make jewelry, and I try not to think about the man of my dreams talking to the woman he loved, only a few hundred yards away.
* * *
* * *
I’d like to say the jewelry distracts me, that I get into perfect flow again, but I don’t; I burn my hand on the soldering iron, and I can’t stop staring at my phone, hoping for him to call me, to tell me she has gone.
My phone is full of texts:
Suki: Laura, I want the work phone back. Take a few days of personal time to get your head together, but I will expect you back in the office next Monday. I don’t want to lose a perfectly good employee over this nonsense.
Vanya: WHOA, what happened in that interview? Everyone’s saying you quit. You are on fire, girl!! Though maybe you absorbed Tiger Woman’s roar mantra a little too literally? Hope you’re OK, call if I can help. X
Vanya: PS Thought Jasper looked HOT. Is he your Gale or your Peeta?
Jasper: I got two kitchen enquiries off the back of our broadcast! Plus, Suki wants to include Contessa Kitchens in an interiors feature next month. Thank you for the intro. Sorry you didn’t think our floorplans were in alignment, all the best. x J
As I’m replying to Vanya, telling her I’m fine, it’s complicated, and I’ll call her tonight, a text from Ted flashes up,
Ted: Where did you go? I’m taking Bell to see Dad. Back soon, please don’t go anywhere.
No kiss. Don’t go anywhere. Maybe he wants to let me down gently, in person—Ted would be courteous like that. Part of me thinks I should just leave now. Fly home and forget this whole weekend of madness. Except I’m never going to be able to forget Ted, am I? I’m certainly never going to forget last night. Maybe Ted’s ruined sex for me now. Like showing someone a film in surround sound from the comfort of a luxurious private cinema, and then telling them they have to watch all future films on their phone, at the back of a bus, with crappy broken headphones.
Maybe I should move back to Bristol, be closer to Gran. Perhaps I should grovel my apologies to Suki and simply go back to work next week. Though I don’t think I want to do that. The idea of being freelance again, which terrified me before, now feels strangely exciting. I could still write things I wanted to write for Love Life, but I could also write other, more serious things, for other publications. I could be my own boss again and work from anywhere.
Something needs to change, I know that. At the very least, this weekend has given me a taste for the restorative power of the sea, my need to see the horizon occasionally. I promise myself I will try to get out of the city more at weekends. Maybe Brighton would be a nice place to live?
As my mind races with possibilities, I feel a creeping anxiety about all the new decisions I’m going to have to make once I get home. I turn to the workbench and see a coin on the table. Maybe I should let fate decide. Heads, I walk out of here right now, pack up and go home. Tails, I stay. I spin the coin on the work surface, waiting for it to fall, but it comes to a stop on its side; even fate thinks I’m a lost cause.
* * *
* * *
When Ted eventually returns, I’m sitting on the bed in the cottage.
“You’re here,” he says, standing in the doorway.
“Did you think I wouldn’t be?” I ask, mustering a sad smile.
“Please don’t look like that.” He comes over to sit beside me and puts an arm around me, pulling my head to his broad shoulder.
“How do I look?”
“Like a sad puppy.” Ted presses a palm against my cheek.
“Your wife coming back kind of rained on my parade,” I admit, leaning into his hand.
“She’s not ‘back,’ Laura, and she’s no longer my wife, she hasn’t been for a long time. She only came to serve me with divorce papers and to see Gerry.”