The Reunion, page 26
‘Who?’
‘You don’t know him.’ For some reason, I want to keep Nick to myself.
‘So what? You can’t tell me that you didn’t feel that…’ But his words have lost their swagger.
I look him full in the face. I could tell him that he ruined my life, that I could never consider a future with someone who let me down so badly even if they were ‘sorry’. But I know the rejection will be more powerful if I don’t explain it. I step closer and reach out my hand like I might have changed my mind. Then I drop the pound coin into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Thanks for the fag.’
I walk away, feeling at least a foot taller than I did before I came in here. That three minutes in the alley was worth more than all the therapy Helen’s made me have. I’m never going back. I don’t even feel guilty about Nick. That was something I needed to do. Because it’s not only Will Jenkin I’m leaving in the alley; it’s the self-loathing that I’ve wrapped around me like a cloak since I left. It might seem like a paltry way of evening the score but I feel freer than I have in years.
Thirty-Six
Now 00.30
I watch the emotions play out across Nick’s face. I know him well enough to translate every movement. The way his lips tighten as he tries to dismiss what I’ve said. His eyes widening as he assesses the situation. His mind is raking the evidence, searching for a loophole. But he only has to look at the twins and their olive skin against the combined pastiness of him and me. Even if he tells himself I’m lying, there will always be a shadow of doubt. His eyes harden.
‘How?’ He spits the words out.
‘I slept with someone before we got engaged.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘You’re damn right it matters,’ he explodes. ‘Who was it? Hawksmoor? I saw the way your tongue was hanging out when you saw him tonight. Frankly it was embarrassing.’
‘It doesn’t matter who it was.’
His mask’s come off. It’s telling that wondering who his rival was, not how it affects the twins, is his first concern. I feel a swell of remorse; they deserved to hear the truth before Nick did. But it’s too late now.
‘If not Hawksmoor then who?’ He’s still raking over a list of suspects. ‘Was it one of the other losers you and Tiff used to hang out with? Some greasy, fat Italian chef.’ He’s working himself into a rage. ‘I mean, who else would possibly have wanted you? An overweight waitress going nowhere. You were hardly a catch.’
The silent contempt he’s felt for me over the years is out in the open. I could leave him hanging. Let the not knowing eat away at him. But I want to see his face. I’ll deal with the fallout later.
‘It was Will Jenkin, if you must know.’
‘After what he did?’ Nick goggles. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘What he did? It was you. You who did it all. And I still don’t know why. I never did anything to you.’
‘You never even looked at me,’ Nick shouts. ‘I tried to help you that night. If you’d have come with me, you’d have been fine. But you never did know what was good for you.’
‘How long have you hated me?’
He doesn’t answer. He puts his hands around my throat instead.
We must have stood this close together a thousand times over the course of our marriage. Hugging in the kitchen, dancing at weddings. If it wasn’t for his grip and the contortion of his face, we could be locked in a lover’s embrace. But his hands are choking the life out of me.
‘Nick…’ I rasp.
But he shuts his eyes. That’s how I know there’s no coming back. I’ve smashed his family apart in front of him and here, in his beloved Cambridge too. He’s not going to let me get away with it.
They say your life flashes before you before you die. But as darkness reaches out to claim me, it’s not the grotty suburban streets covered in cigarette butts and used takeaway containers of my childhood that I see. I don’t see my parents, or myself on my wedding day, the hint of a bump poking out of my Empire-line wedding dress or the twins when we brought them home from hospital the first time. I see my sister, her face blazing. Her lips move soundlessly, like she’s urging me on. And I know I have to fight back.
I start clawing at him but Nick bats me away with one hand, still crushing my windpipe with the other. I splutter. If I can just get him to let me speak. There are things I could tell him, things I should have said, that might make him change his mind. But he doesn’t relent.
Just when I feel my consciousness slipping through the cracks, I hear the scratching of the lock. I only have the energy for one last flicker of hope. I don’t have many friends left here tonight but perhaps one of them came back. The scratch becomes a scrape and a creak, then there’s a whoosh of air. Someone’s here. I’m safe. But there’s no shout of horror and no sound of footsteps pounding against the floor. Nick’s heavy breathing is the only sound filling the room. I feel like I’m underwater. Maybe I hallucinated the creaking. Or my would-be rescuer doesn’t want to save me. I think of Will, Henry and Freja; Lyla, Liz; all the people I’ve fallen out with tonight. Any single one of them might turn and walk in the other direction. I flail my hands one last time. Not waving but drowning.
More by luck than design, my three-carat diamond engagement ring, so heavy I take it off when I’m alone and pottering in the house, hits Nick squarely in the eye. He gives a howl of pain and lets go, putting both hands up to it. I drive my knee into his crotch the way I always thought I would and he doubles over.
Then the door swings wide open and Will rushes in, Chris the porter red-faced and out of breath right behind him.
‘What the fuck happened here?’ Will looks from where I’m standing, my hands now around my own throat as if I’m trying to keep my head on my neck and Nick bent over with blood gushing from his eye. ‘Are you okay?’
It hurts to breathe so I know I need to ration my words. I stagger past Will and Chris towards the door. I don’t want to be near any of them. Only when I’m out in the open, gulping in greedy mouthfuls of air, do I speak.
‘Call the police.’
* * *
The next time I see Will, I’m wrapped in a cloak of silver foil and sitting in the back of an ambulance parked at a ninety-degree angle to two police cars.
‘You look like you’ve run a marathon,’ he tells me, tactfully ignoring the network of bruises running from the bottom of my chin to the base of my clavicle. I must look like I’m wearing a concrete-coloured polo neck.
‘Or like a turkey fit for basting,’ I croak back. ‘Cooked up for the breakfast rush.’
We look out across college together. There’s crime-scene tape around the entrance to the Great Hall. Crowds of people in their pyjamas are spilling out of the staircases in the accommodation block like there’s been a late-night fire alarm. I can see by the way they’re clustering together and frantically jabbing at their phones that the news is spreading. I shrink back into the ambulance and hope they can’t make out who I am. What is it with me and this place?
‘From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.’ Will looks devastated. ‘I can’t help feeling responsible for this.’
I shrug like every word isn’t an effort. ‘You’re not the one who married him.’
‘But I knew it was him who took the picture.’ Will drives his toe into the gravel in front of him. ‘I could have warned you.’
I look down. ‘Woulda, coulda, shoulda.’
There are a thousand tiny diversions I could have taken at any point that wouldn’t have led me here. Will is just one of them. I don’t have the emotional capacity to rake over them for his benefit. All I want to do is get away. I have to put the twins first. I look over at where two policemen are still talking to Chris the porter. I’ve given my preliminary statement. They didn’t exactly say I had to stay around. I could leave. Go back to London, pick the twins up and take them somewhere safe where Nick can’t find us.
‘Are you going to be okay? Stupid question.’
‘I will be.’ The police look as though they’re almost finished with Chris. The officer who took my statement said they’d contact me in the morning to take an ‘evidential statement’. I have no idea what that is or how it’s different from what he’s already written in his notebook, but if it means I can leave now, it can only be a good thing. ‘As soon as I get home.’
‘Do you know where they’ve taken him?’
‘There’s a police station on the other side of Parker’s Piece.’ I think of Nick being poured into a squad car with his hands braceleted in front of him, his eye still weeping blood. I can’t believe I got him so wrong. Not that I’m exactly blameless after all the lies I’ve told. The hard nugget of guilt that seems permanently lodged in my solar plexus seems to swell. I need to get away. I stand up.
‘Do you want me to take you home and wait with you?’ Will asks. ‘In case he goes there when they let him out?’
Will’s continued presence in my life is exactly what I don’t want. After what I accused him of, he has every reason to hate me. I think of my initial plan to raise the twins on my own, the way my mum did Helen and me. I never should have deviated from it.
‘It’s fine. They told me they’ll hold him for at least twenty-four hours and when they release him he won’t be able to come back to the family house.’
I don’t add that I have no intention of being there, even if he does.
‘Let me run you back anyway,’ he says solicitously. ‘I can have my driver here in two shakes.’
For a nanosecond, I hesitate. After everything that’s happened, it would be easy to let Will take charge. Letting a man step in to save the day seems to be my default mode.
‘Give us a chance to catch up on the way back,’ he carries on. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that I’ll say no. ‘I can offer door-to-door service. All I ask in exchange is a cuppa on the other side. I’m gagging for a brew. And I’d love to meet your kids.’
I stiffen. Was he outside that door longer than I think? And why did it take so long to swing open? I look at his face but his smile is guileless; his eyes are clear. For now. I think of how much he wanted to discuss what happened between us. It won’t take him long to put two and two together when he sees Artie’s dimples and clocks how old the pair of them are. What will he do then? I can’t let that happen until they’re ready. Will can wait. I shrug the silvery blanket off and let it fall to the ground near his feet.
‘I’m sorry.’ My voice is final. However, I’ve ended up finding it and at whatever cost, this is the independence that Helen was driving me towards. It might not have worked out the way we planned but I think back to everything that happened tonight and hope she’d feel proud. I think of the law school application, the map on my wall at college, the world I haven’t had the chance to see. For once the future is going to be on my terms. ‘I think I’d rather get there on my own.’
Acknowledgements
My dad died from Covid-19 while I was writing this book and while escaping into writing was a solace, there were times it was hard to keep going and it was the support of my friends and family that pushed me through. The Reunion owes something to everyone who raised a glass on 2 April 2020 and also to the wonderful staff at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, who cared for my dad and allowed my stepmother to sit beside him, so he wasn’t alone.
While I’m grateful to so many people, special thanks belong to: Celina Teague, Robyn Stromsoe, Shannan West, Hannah Armitage, Sam Armitage, Jo Akram, Lizzie Varley, Ali Davies, Emma Carter, Lisa Kililea, Piero Politeo, Teresa Garin Mendarózqueta, Lisa Kendall, Laura Stockwell, Amelia Haughey, Gaelle Cazavant, Kathy Baillie, Amy Zempilas, Cori Lambert, Holly Shewring, Katherine Saunt, Katherine Patterson, Kate Smith, Helen Cleary, Hannah Talbot, Katie Mounier, Astrid Solomon, Nigel Phillips, Kat Sparks, Topsy Buchanan, Jo Jervis Read, Henry Bourke, Francesca Beighton, Tony Bucknall, Penny Vallings, Robert Vallings, Jean Dorman, Steve James and Anne James. There are many more so my apologies for missing anybody out.
The book itself focuses on university days – while my time at Cambridge wasn’t nearly as exotic or exciting as Emily’s, I’m grateful to all the people I met there and the memories we made. I’d also like to thank Richard Partington, Chris Owen and James Bailey for some fact checking as I wrote. All mistakes are of course mine and mine alone and while I went to college with at least a dozen Henrys and Wills, these characters are entirely a work of fiction, as are the set of events that occur in the book, although, embarrassingly, I have to admit I’ve hurled a couple of drinks in my time.
Thanks as always to my amazing agent, Sarah Hornsley, fantastic editor, Bethan Jones, and the teams at both The Bent Agency and Simon & Schuster for your enthusiasm and insight. Most books are team efforts and this one is no exception.
It’s also a huge thrill to be able to thank the readers of My Best Friend’s Murder. Your support and feedback has definitely informed the writing of The Reunion. To my writer friends, Emily Paull, Louise Allan, Natasha Lester, Holly Craig, Pip Drysdale, Victoria Selman, Sophie Flynn and Gytha Lodge: thanks for welcoming me into your world. Finally, to my remaining family: you keep the plates spinning and the world interesting. I thank you for that.
More from the Author
My Best Friend's Murder
About the Author
Polly Phillips currently lives in Western Australia, although she is originally from the UK. When she’s not writing, Polly combines journalism (contributing mainly to the Daily Telegraph) with part-time teaching at primary-school level. My Best Friend’s Murder, her debut novel, won the Montegrappa Writing Prize at the Emirates Literature Festival in 2019. The Reunion is her second novel.
www.SimonandSchuster.co.uk/Authors/Polly-Phillips
Also by Polly Phillips
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First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2022
Copyright © Polly Phillips 2022
The right of Polly Phillips to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-9541-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-9542-6
Audio ISBN: 978-1-3985-1359-4
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Polly Phillips, The Reunion
