CHAPTER 4
“Anyway, what did Lynn say, Julia?”

I looked at her as she composed her thoughts, someone who had just shared the most literally horrendous personal information, and asked myself exactly how self-absorbed I must be. All of this was entirely down to me, in the end. Not Mary, not work, just me I wondered if there might be a way of rebottling the genie, for all of the very few seconds it took me to realise how stupidly unrealistic that thought was.

“Lynn? Oh, don’t worry. She didn’t spot a bra strap, or some unwiped mascara”

“I don’t use make-up”

“It was a joke. Anyway, Lynn. Did you not spot how obsessed you were getting over certain news items? And then the boy Rishi, I hear, he brings the Daily Nail in, so bang! Blue touchpaper city, that”

“I wouldn’t use it to line a cat’s litter tray”

“You two don’t have a cat, so that’s moot. No, Lynn just started to notice which little snippets trigger you. And you grew your hair, and then you relaxed on dress-down Fridays. Lynn and I were at college together, Ellie, until her family had to pull her out. Long story, not tonight”

“I didn’t know that, Julia”

“There’s a lot you didn’t know, woman. See? Makes sense to say that, now. Anyway, I suspect we have you back on track, even if it’s different line. I have other priorities”

“Such as?”

“That woman sitting next to you for one, and my own helicopter man here. Think John Donne, Ellie”

She softened her voice.

“Mary has to know where you two are going, whether to dig in or bail out. Terry needs to know if he has a key worker back at a busy time, and… and a bloody good friend. Lynn needs to know you’re safe, really safe. And young Rishi needs to know it wasn’t something he said?”

“Rishi?”

Terry took over.

“Yeah. When you buggered off, he asked why, and Lynn just about ripped his head off to shit down his neck. I really don’t know how you missed the build-up to that. Crunch time, Ellie, like my beloved said. Not going to ask about Mary”

Julia interrupted once again.

“I bloody am”

My wife put a finger to my lips.

“Been said a couple of times, but it bears repeating. We both said it, married for the right reasons. Vows, yes? I… I’ve met… I’ve met her properly, now. That doesn’t change why we wed. Both of us, we nearly threw all that away, and Ellie, no. I need to see how strong I am. And I think, well, I can see…”

She sat more upright on the settee, clearing her throat after a hint of a sniffle.

“Ellie is going to get a lot of shit, a lot of stormy weather. Can’t do helicopters, so a port in a storm, shelter, and I’m rubbish at metaphors”

Terry cracked another can, clearly resigned to leaving the car on the drive.

“Doing okay from where I’m sitting, Mary”

“Well, not mine, are they? In essence, we’ve sort of agreed we’ll both do our best. It’s just, well, middle ground isn’t exactly possible here, is it? Her in one of those comedy outfits, suit one side, frock the other”

Julia surprised me with a burst of laughter.

“Dave Allen, remember?”

Three of us shook our heads, and she leant forward, hands moving to set the scene.

“Victorian street, yeah? Fog and gaslights. Mr Hyde figure, all lank hair and top hat, almost slavering. Camera cuts away to little heeled boots trotting under a mass of skirt and petticoats. Hyde. Boots. Obviously horrible predator following victim-to-be. Then the camera zooms out. Mr Hyde in top hat, greasy tailed coat, skirt and heeled boots”

She let our slightly awkward laughter fade.

“No. Not going to work. What are you going to do about work, love?”

Terry shrugged.

“I was thinking of some remote working for a while, but have, you know, the odd video meeting. Let her be seen a little before we have any Great Reveal. Bit like we did with Joe”

“The gay lad you told me about, love?”

“The very one. Ellie will remember. A couple of vague hints, then nothing for a while; rinse and repeat. Feed the rumour mill just enough that it can bite, and then leave it to do its work. Are you up for that… woman?”

I looked at my wife, and she nodded. Julia topped both of their glasses, handing me a bottle of ale.

“Right. I think we have a foundation to work from. Let’s have some more of your pics, and some of the story with them this time”

“Right. Er… This is a place called Jerramungup. I ran out of food the day before, so there’s this garage, and that morning I’d run out of water. I’d run out of food the previous day. Ten hours of riding on empty. It was Boxing Day”

There was a muttered chorus of obscenities, and I shrugged.

“Some rough ground out the front of the garage. I went into the little shop, ate half their hot display and drank my bodyweight in cold water. I was sure I was going to hurl, but I couldn’t help it. Real tunnel vision. Pitched the tent on the patch of stubble, just about to fall asleep when two road-train drivers shake the tent. They’ve got a pack of muffins. ‘Not exactly Christmas cake’, they say, wish me a merry one and tell me the garage owner will fill all my water up before I go. So I get up in the morning, a lot less groggy, and there’s only a bloody proper campsite behind the place. Got a half-decent brekky from the garage, though”

I showed them a pic of some weary sheep.

“Stupid me took my usual nibbles. Dried pasta. The sheep there, they get bore water, bit gritty. There’s often a little pond, fed by a windpump, and sometimes a dumpy little header tank. I helped myself a few times; filtered the water through spare knickers, used it for cooking”

Julia asked, “What about washing?”, but the look I gave her answered that one.

“I finished up in a town called Norseman, where I took that photo you commented on. Fading Goldfields town, looks just about dead, but they have a full Olympic-size swimming pool, and the motel I found had a little pool out the back. I spent a lot of time in each”

Julia stared at me, once again.

“Women’s swimming trunks, under a one-piece. Flattens things enough. Sort of reverse of what I’ve been doing at work for, you know, these”

I waved at my chest in the same old away, and got the expected nods of recognition. Terry was still curious, though.

“Didn’t anyone, you know? Spot you? Read you?”

“Only if you include Carly on the first day, but that was sort of in the opposite direction”

I found myself laughing at an ambush memory, and Mary looked up, from what I suddenly realised was a snuggle, to ask what was funny.

“Oh, I was in Denmark—no, it’s a town in Australia. Hang on… There. That’s the shire marker, and that’s a picture of a real bird, a splendid fairy-wren. Quite common, they are, just a lot smaller, obviously. Anyway, Denmark, there’s a backpackers’ hostel there, and to answer your question, I’m put in the women’s dorm. I fancied a break from cooking, so I went out for a counter meal, Aussie for bar meal, in a pub. Turned out to be a bit rough. Trucker tried to chat me up, but all he talked about was how much he hated tourists. Not the smoothest of patter. Landlord rescued me after a bit, and the trucker went out for a smoke. Does that answer your question?”

“I suppose it does. Begs a lot more, though”

“Such as?”

“Which… Whether you’re interested that way, now. Men”

I’d had just enough to drink to loosen many of my censors, and so I simply came out with a slogan, one I’d seen many times before.

“For fuck’s sake, I never wanted my cock, why on Earth would I want someone else’s?”

That sally was greeted with a prolonged silence, so I apologised, and tried to move it on, but Julia pulled it back.

“Not the best way to answer that, Ellie, but I do believe that was something Mary needed to hear, and If you don’t mind me reaching across, she needs a top up”

Terry was till trying to press the right business buttons.

“Week today, then. For officially coming back, if you are. We have an all-hands Teams session in three days’ time, though, leads and juniors, that is. Could you make that?”

Could I?

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Let me know the day before, please. Now, someone pass the prawn crackers. Top-up, lover?”

The next couple of days were tormenting, my resolution weathercocking all over the place, but Thursday morning duly arrived, and I settled with my laptop at the dining table, wearing much the same as I had for the meeting with Terry, but with the addition, on Mary’s advice, of a simple pendant I had bought for her on a trip to Gibraltar, where we had toured the now-vanished glass shop. My wife sat out of shot as I settled my headphones in place, my hair combed so that it hung down in front of my shoulders. That day’s skinny jumper was in lavender, and it clung so tightly it left no possible doubt how thin my arms were.

’Someone will let you in when the meeting starts’.

Breathe, woman.

Click, buzz, a clearing picture: Lynn.

“Hiya. Welcome back and… oh. Ellie?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome. Be bloody welcome, okay?”