I couldn’t believe Paul had punched Simon. It was the nicest thing he’d ever done for me. Totally made up for the time he’d cut the hair of every single one of my My Little Ponies. Well, maybe not all of them. I should call him and let him know we’d worked things out, otherwise it was going to be incredibly awkward at my dad’s wedding in a couple of weeks. Right now, I needed to think about getting pastries, coffee and cream. And probably some stain remover to try and get the blood out of Simon’s shirt. And they say romance is dead.
The supermarket seemed strangely busy, full of people on their way to work, buying tuna sandwiches for their lunch break, early risers doing their shopping, and more than one creased-looking gentleman with a terribly self-satisfied expression on his face.
‘All right?’ Something reeking of YSL Kouros nodded at me over the croissants. ‘Heavy night?’
‘Something like that,’ I said, without eye contact. Didn’t he realize he was in London? We didn’t talk to strangers. We didn’t even talk to our neighbours for the first five years unless it was to complain about the noise or errant pet shitting in our garden.
‘Yeah, trick is to get out before the ‘wake-up,’ he said, filling up a plastic bag with cinnamon Danishes. ‘But I always leave a note. You’ve got to leave a note. Just out of order not to.’
‘Right,’ I gave him a tight smile and backed away slowly towards the queue for the till.
And he followed.
‘Always felt bad for girls,’ he went on. ‘You know, you see a bloke on the walk of shame and everyone thinks, “Get in there, son!” but you see a girl walking down the street at six a.m. on a Saturday in last night’s clothes and everyone just thinks “slag”.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, flicking through the items in my basket for a moment before I realized what he’d said. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Not me though,’ Kouros Man flung out his hands, spilling his already opened can of Red Bull. ‘I do not judge. And it’s not like you’ve got your skirt up your arse and tits hanging out like some of them, is it? Good outfit.’
Brilliant. Not only was this charmer still drunk, he thought we were one-night-stand kindred spirits.
‘You should probably give me your number, you know, in case you ever need company.’ The stale stench of whatever he’d been drinking/spilling down himself last night combined with the overabundance of intense aftershave came closer, making me gag.
‘I have a boyfriend,’ I said quickly, holding the basket between us. ‘So no.’
‘Right, course you do,’ he replied, fingering a packet of Durex for a moment before adding it to his booty. Double gag. I turned my back, hoping he would just go away, but I could still smell him. I had a feeling it would be a lingering odour. Thank god Simon had come to his senses. That was the first man in five years to ask for my number and I really didn’t feel like he was a keeper.
I paid for my breakfast bounty and vamoosed back out onto the street, so enthralled by my iPhone that I couldn’t even hear Kouros Man muttering loudly after me. Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘bitch’. No, he didn’t judge.
August never guaranteed good weather in London, but that morning was beautiful. Bright, cool sunshine and a clear blue sky. I bounced back along Upper Street, scanning text messages from Matthew and Em. They wouldn’t appreciate a blow-by-blow phone call pre-seven a.m., so I tapped out an ‘everything’s fine’ text, deleted the torrent of abuse aimed at Simon, and kept the effusive messages of love. Never hurt to have them around.
I locked my phone and slipped it into my back pocket. I wasn’t particularly good at expressing emotion and I had never been particularly free and easy with the ‘L’ word. I loved my parents, I loved my brother, I loved Matthew, Emelie, Simon, Galaxy chocolate, Alexander Skarsgard and Topshop Baxter Jeans. And I really, really loved my flat. I’d lived in a wild assortment of shitty bedsits and tolerable house-shares since university but this, our beautiful two-bedroom first-floor flat, snagged for a song in the middle of the recession, was my home. The last eighteen months had been spent feathering our nest. Mostly with piles of clothes I never got around to ironing, but still. Home. I climbed the five steps up to the royal blue door and paused for a moment. I was nervous. What if Simon was awake? Maybe I should have attempted to make myself look half decent before I left. What was I going to say to him? Maybe we could just pretend last night never happened.
‘At least he won’t be wearing Kouros,’ I said to myself, and sort of to a passing dog walker, as I stuck my keys in the lock.
The flat was still quiet when I passed through the door and I slipped off my shoes so as not to wake Simon. OK, I would brush my teeth, make coffee and then whatever would happen, would happen. Setting breakfast down on the kitchen countertop, I made a beeline for the bathroom. Whatever would happen would happen. And so what? I thought as I splashed my face with cold water. One awkward conversation and then back on the road to marriage, babies and bliss. Everyone had bumps in the road; everyone had their little moments of madness. What relationship was perfect? I grabbed my toothbrush and reminded myself that the happily-ever-after myth was just that. A myth. Hmm, no toothpaste. Automatically, I reached into the cabinet beside the sink for a new tube. Real relationships were difficult and required work. They needed understanding and compromise. You couldn’t just run away when things got tough, you had to …
The toothpaste.
There wasn’t a new tube of toothpaste in the cabinet beside the sink because I’d started a new tube of toothpaste the day before. But it wasn’t in its holder. And neither was Simon’s toothbrush. And his razor was gone. Still clutching my toothbrush, I padded back through to the hallway and stopped outside the bedroom door. Even though I already knew what I was going to find, I just couldn’t open it. I felt sick. And angry. And stupid. I pushed the door open with my big toe and peered inside. At the empty bed. I stepped backwards and felt something hard and cold under my foot, followed by something sharp, stinging and hot. The photo from Emelie’s birthday. Simon must have knocked it over on his way out. In his rush.
Toothbrush in one hand, phone in the other, I slid down the wall, knocking every other photo onto the floor on my way down, and watching my blood trickle out onto the laminate flooring Simon had so lovingly laid, the day after last year’s FA Cup final. Simon always said there was no DIY during football season.
I slid the lock off my phone and pressed the last call button.
‘Matthew?’ I said quietly, trying not to flex my toes. ‘He took my toothpaste.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I’m going to kill him,’
I nodded.
‘I mean, I’m going to destroy him. Hold him down, punch him in the face and then rip off each limb before beating his face in with the soggy ends.’
‘’K,’ I agreed.
‘And then I’m going to—’
‘Emelie,’ Matthew interrupted, reaching down to scoop me up from the floor. ‘You’re not helping.’
I leaned into my friend and squeezed my toothbrush in one hand, my phone in the other.
‘Want to give me that now?’ he asked, holding out his hand. I gave him my phone.
‘And the toothbrush?’
I reluctantly passed it over.
Matthew and Emelie had crossed London in record time and made it to my door before I’d even moved. I had called Matthew, he had called Emelie and she had called Domino’s but they weren’t delivering yet. But the thought was there. I’d given them the abridged version