Chapter Thirty-Seven
SUNDAY 9TH DECEMBER
I woke in a crumpled mess of sheets. It had been a long night, but I wasn’t ready to face the music yet. Going home would mean telling everyone the horrific truth of the situation, and I was nowhere near ready. I decided there was only one place I could go; the Isle of Wight, to my mum. She was the best friend I had, and although she would want to throttle John Kelly when she heard about this, she might be the only person who could remotely make me feel better, as unimaginable as it seemed.
The car ferry ran on the hour, every hour. I didn’t bother booking, merely rocked up and waited. Time meant nothing to me. I was so utterly miserable and sick to my stomach with the awfulness of everything.
I hadn’t warned my mother I was coming. I didn’t want to worry her, which she undoubtably would do once she realised what a state I was in. I also didn’t want to switch my phone on and see any more messages from John Kelly. My heart couldn’t take it. No excuses, no bullshit. It was what it was.
When the boat docked, we were ushered off in lines. Driving the short distance to my mum’s house, I was reminded of the last time I was on the island – with John. Everywhere I turned, everything seemed to be mocking me. There was no escape. Bythe time I pulled up on to the empty driveway I was sobbing again, furious aching salty tears of sorrow, and a painful longing for what had been.
No one was home. I sat with my head on the steering wheel for a full half hour before Mum’s elderly next-door neighbour, Vera, gently tapped on the window.
‘Are you ok, Lucy?’ she asked, concern crinkled at the corner of her kind eyes.
‘I’m ok, just waiting for Mum,’ I managed to utter between the sobs.
‘Do you want to come into my house and wait for her?’ she asked, offering me tea and warmth.
‘No thank you, Vera. You’re good to offer, but I’m no company right now.’ I wanted my mother, and nobody else.
‘If you change your mind, the door is open,’ she said with a sympathetic sigh.
Hours passed, but they meant nothing to me. All I could do was imagine the worst. I tried my best to draw a line under the whole horrific thing, but that pesky demon kept flashing images of that bitch Jennifer all over my boyfriend, sorryex-boyfriend, in our bed, in his house. I hadn’t eaten since the wedding, but I couldn’t have stomached a thing. My nerves were shot, I was completely and utterly drained. I fished out my phone from my bag on the passenger seat and then after looking at it blankly for a few seconds, threw it back into the bag without switching it on.
Behind me, my mother pulled into the drive in her little blue VW. At the sight of my car, she rushed over with an enormous smile and outstretched arms.
‘Oh my gosh darling, what a surprise. How are you?’ She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and took a proper look at me.
‘What happened?’ Her eyes exuded concern as she scanned my face.
‘Tell me. What is it?’ From her expression her imagination was running riot.
‘I’m ok,’ I reassured her through the sobs. ‘It’s John.’ I couldn’t control the earth shattering gasps, as she helped me out of my car and ushered me in through the front door. It smelt like home. Like fairy washing powder and clean sheets. The familiarity of it made me cry harder. She held me until I was all cried out again.
‘I can’t believe I let myself fall in love with him like that,’ I told her as she poured us both a large glass of red wine. She handed me mine silently and we sat together on the sofa as she waited for me to elaborate in my own time.
‘He let me down,’ I said.
‘What happened? He was absolutely besotted with you when he was here a few weeks ago. Even I could see that.’ In her effort to make me feel better, I actually felt worse. It would have been far easier if she had agreed with me that he was a rotten bastard through and through and I just couldn’t see it for looking.
‘I don’t know. I honestly thought he felt the same…’ I hated to even say the words out loud, but I knew at some stage I would have to divulge.
‘You know, the thought of my only daughter moving to Ireland wasn’t exactly one of the best pieces of news I’d ever received,’ she began.
I didn’t interrupt her, but she still didn’t know what he had done. She took my hand and continued earnestly. ‘When I met John Kelly, I wanted to dislike him, I really did. He just waltzed in and swept my only daughter off her feet, like none of us would ever have thought possible. I would have bet money on you never ever having let anyone in the way you let him in, and partially I blamed myself for that, because in all honesty, I have the worst taste in men and probably didn’t set the best example along the way. But that was to do with me and my insecurity.Nothing to do with you. You, Lucy, are beautiful, smart and talented. You are way stronger than I was at your age.’ I listened, feeling a fraud. Whatever strength she had seen in me had long left at this stage.
‘Don’t cry. I wanted to dislike that man of yours for taking my baby away from me again.’ She took a sip of her wine, and I sat silently waiting for her to continue.
‘Lucy, anyone can see John Kelly adores you. And from what I saw of him the last day, he was an absolute gentleman. Much as I hate to admit it, I think you may have met your match.’
I glanced around the sitting room, taking in pictures of myself a few years earlier in a graduation cap and gown, smiling from ear to ear with my newly acquired hygiene diploma, the whole world ahead of me. Little did I know at this stage how much of a fuck up I’d become. A twenty-seven-year-old divorcee, and a delusional one at that.
‘What happened, Lucy?’ Mum interrupted my thoughts, bringing me back to the present.
‘There was another woman.’ The words scorched my tongue like poison.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she practically scoffed. ‘Who could compete with my daughter?’ She seemed to take it as a personal insult to herself. If it wasn’t so tragic, I would have laughed at her reaction.
