Fractured(74)

He never got to finish. Fury like molten lava flowed through my veins. ‘What? Is that it? It’s been like three weeks since my accident so that justifies you in sleeping with someone else? Is that what you’re saying to me? Well, is it?’

He looked worried then, knowing of all things that should never have been voiced, that was possibly the worst thing he could ever have said.

And that’s when Cathy’s words came back to me. The words she’d spoken when I first came upon them.

‘And what did Cathy mean up there, when she said this was “horribly familiar”?’ A slow red flush suffused his cheeks, while conversely I felt the blood drain from mine. ‘What? This has happened before? Have you been having an affair with her behind my back? Is that it?’

‘No, no. Of course not. I told you, this thing today, it was a one-off. It just… happened.’

There was more going on here than he was admitting to, I could feel it.

‘But you’ve been with her before, haven’t you?’

I saw the dull look of confession in his eyes.

Inspiration dawned then, as the nasty little puzzle pieces all came together. ‘Oh my God! I found you with her once before, didn’t I? When we were at uni?’

For one insane moment he actually looked pleased that I’d got my memory back. ‘You remember that?’

‘Not entirely,’ I hissed. ‘But that is what happened, isn’t it? I found her with you and we broke up?’

He nodded miserably. ‘But then you forgave me.’

And I saw then the entreaty in his eyes. I killed that hope before it could even draw breath, crushing and grinding it underfoot to extinguish all life.

‘But not this time, Matt. You don’t get any more chances to do this to me. Not ever again.’





11


I walked for a long time; walked until the boiling rage had cooled and the humiliation only stung instead of seared through me like a lance. Unfortunately, however far I went I couldn’t seem to erase the image that had greeted me in Matt’s room; of their two perfect bodies enmeshed together like some exotic piece of art. I didn’t think anything was going to spare me from having that vision stencilled on my memory for a long time to come. Ironic really, that that would be sticking with me when so much of my life these days was all about the forgetting.

Eventually the cold and sheer exhaustion stopped my restless feet. I looked up at the corner of a busy junction, read a street name I’d never heard of, and realised I had absolutely no idea where I was. I’d been walking mindlessly for several hours and, for the first time since bolting out of Matt’s building and into the street, I made myself stop to consider what I was going to do next. The answer came surprisingly easily.

I hailed a cab within a few minutes and gave him the address of the London flat I’d visited with Jimmy just one week earlier. I asked the driver to stop off once on the way so I could make a few essential purchases. My mobile was ringing continually as we drove through the capital, but I resolutely ignored it, as I had done in the hours since I’d finally torn away from Matt on the stairwell. Eventually he stopped calling, perhaps at last realising that all words were superfluous, for there really was nothing left to say.

The driver certainly earned his tip by assisting me into my building with the flat-packed storage boxes I had purchased en route. Once inside my own apartment, although it wasn’t going to be that for much longer, I propped the cardboard containers up against the wall, together with the reels of packing tape, scissors and string I had also bought.

The telephone call to my father was a difficult one. There was no easy way to dress up the situation, and even though I played down the explicit nature of what had happened, his paternal instincts went straight into overdrive. It took almost every last ounce of my powers of persuasion to prevent him from getting on the next train up to London.

‘I don’t like the idea of you being there all alone tonight. You’re just going to dwell on what’s happened.’

‘No I’m not,’ I assured him, hoping the answer wasn’t a lie. ‘I’m going to be far too busy packing to dwell, anyhow.’

Eventually, something in my voice must have convinced him that I was neither manically depressed nor suicidal, for he stopped trying to get me to change my mind and asked only that I call him in the morning. I hung up the phone, feeling certain that the fact that I’d broken off my engagement and was quitting my London flat to return home was not exactly bad news as far as he was concerned. It was too early for me to say if I felt the same way.

I began assembling the storage boxes, distributing them in each room of the flat. I worked methodically, emptying cupboards, drawers and wardrobes as dispassionately as a professional remover; packing up the belongings I didn’t recognise, from a flat I didn’t remember.