The Perfectly Imperfect Woman by Milly Johnson (9)

Chapter 9

Marnie didn’t sleep. Those four cinema screens were all playing on a loop in her head and she contemplated getting up and going out to the supermarket to buy some Nytol, but decided that would be a worse ordeal than staying in with insomnia. Mr Sandman might have been keeping his distance but Mrs Agoraphobia had paid her a visit, it seemed. Every noise outside the window, every car that passed made her heart delay its beat and then kick hard. She’d hoped that Justin would arrive at her door with an explanation. Maybe Suranna wasn’t pregnant and she’d just shoved a cushion up her dress – after all if she was deranged enough to storm into the office creating holy hell, then she was nuts enough to try that stunt. But what if she really was pregnant? And if Justin had lied about sleeping with her, what else had he said that wasn’t the truth? She suspected the answer to that lay between ‘most of it’ and ‘everything’. She’d not only been reeled in by him but she’d put the hook through her own lip.

She had more chance of Leonardo DiCaprio dressed all in black, shinning up her drainpipe with a box of Milk Tray than she had of falling unconscious. She tossed from side to side in bed with her mind torturing her until she was forced to get up and make herself a hot chocolate. She usually walked around the block, breathed in some night air, reset her body clock but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. She added the last of the cheap brandy that she used for cooking to the mug and glugged it back in large throatfuls.

Eventually, due to sheer mental exhaustion, she dropped off on the sofa and was woken by a persistent knocking early the next morning. She flew straight into panic mode and was shaking as she peeped through the blind to see a man with a parcel. He caught her looking and waved and she felt obliged to go to the door. It wasn’t for her though, but for Melissa next door at 34; she was 34A. Postmen and delivery drivers were always getting it wrong. It didn’t help that her door didn’t have a number on it and she’d told the landlord when she first moved in. He’d said he’d sort it but he never had and she didn’t see why she should.

She caught sight of the clock in the kitchen as she went to put on the kettle. It was ten past nine and ordinarily she would have been at work an hour now. She could imagine the whole building gossiping about her. Vicky and Elena in particular, spreading their venom and she wondered if Justin was being discussed with the same malice. She should ring HR and say she was ill but when she picked up the phone and started dialling the number, she couldn’t do it. She burst into tears and allowed herself to dissolve helplessly into them, battered down further by the stick of her mother’s words telling her what a trouble-causer she was, a selfish little tart who couldn’t keep her legs shut.

After half an hour of wallowing, she knew that she had to do something more constructive than use up a load of tissues. She couldn’t just sit in the house for ever and pretend none of this had happened, she had to get herself out of this mess. It wasn’t as if it was the first time she’d wished she had sunk into the earth and it had closed over her head. She could run courses on it: How to land yourself in the shit and then find a way out of it until it happens again. Ten pounds, including light refreshment. She took a pad and a pen out of the drawer and began to scribble down a plan of action. Justin was the first word that came to mind. She wrote down his name followed by a large question mark. What was the likelihood that she and he would run off into the sunset together? Given that he hadn’t as much as sent her a text to see if she was okay, the answer was zero. However, the soft, deluded lobe in her brain began to fire ‘what ifs’ at her. What if his wife damaged his phone and he hadn’t got her messages? What if his wife had trapped him by saying that she would kill herself if he attempted to contact her? What if . . .

Oh shut up. A weary sigh resonated from some pissed-off part of her that usually couldn’t get a word in but was now claiming centre stage. A part that said things she didn’t want to hear so she pressed it down until it couldn’t speak. Justin Fox is a gutless twat and if he’d been anything like a real man he would have been in touch. He hasn’t, because he doesn’t care. There is NO OTHER EXPLANATION so wake up and smell the bloody coffee, you daft cow.

The truth hurt as surely as that door swinging back in her face had, more if she were honest with herself. Justin was not going to ride up to her front door on a white charger to declare her his one true love. She had just written the word ‘wanker’ next to Justin’s name when she heard the sound of broken glass and shouting. Horribly familiar shouting.

‘COME OUT, YOU SLAG, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!’

It was Suranna Fox again; that angry, vicious squawk was unmistakable.

Marnie ran upstairs to peep through the blinds at the front bedroom window and saw Justin’s wife smashing Melissa’s car up with a mallet. Melissa’s car with the personalised MS reg plate. She’d obviously traced the address but not quite got it right. She’d seen the very girly Beetle parked outside (red with black ladybird spots and eyelashes on the headlamps). the row of fairy ornaments in the flowery borders, the pink curtains and the dream-catchers at the windows – as opposed to the very plain numberless house next door.

‘You didn’t think I could find out where you lived, did you . . .’ Marnie watched as Suranna picked up one of the stone toadstools from Melissa’s garden and lobbed it at her window, scoring a bullseye if the sound of more glass breaking was anything to go by.

Marnie looked at the little fat woman, face red with fury, stomping up and down Melissa’s path and a wave of unexpected pity hit her from left field. She was going to be horrified when she realised she’d targeted a poor innocent hairdresser. There would be no points scored for her when the police arrived, as they would very soon, because nothing got past nosey Mrs Barlow in the house opposite, or the Neighbourhood Witch as she was better known.

Marnie went downstairs, picked up her mobile and sent a text message to Justin telling him that his wife was getting herself into all sorts of trouble in Redbrook Row and needed him. Then she deleted his number.

The police arrived in record time and took a very distressed Suranna Fox away. Marnie had no idea if Justin turned up or not because she stayed in the kitchen and set up her laptop on the table there. Suranna’s arrival on the street had made her mind up for her: she couldn’t remain here where the neighbours would know soon enough why there was a pregnant woman lobbing fairytale bric-a-brac at windows. She was five months into her tenancy and had only recently filled in the forms to continue the agreement. They’d been sealed up in an envelope ready to send, although she kept forgetting to buy stamps. Thank goodness for her shit memory.

Marnie emailed the estate agency and said that she had changed her mind and would be vacating the property as soon as possible. She hadn’t a clue where she was going to go instead but she’d find somewhere, though that somewhere depended on where her new job would be because she wouldn’t be working at Café Caramba any more.

She drove around to the walk-in doctor’s surgery. She thought she might have had a struggle convincing the doctor she needed some time off work with stress because she was a rubbish liar, but she burst into tears as soon as she sat down. The doctor gave her a sick note for a month and prescribed some tablets to lift her mood and help her to sleep. Try some mindfulness too, suggested Dr Singh. Marnie promised that she would although her mind was already full and she wanted it emptying instead.

She emailed HR a succinct message to tell them that she had been signed off for a month and sent them a photo of the note, promising to post it as well. When she got back to Redbrook Row, she saw that a window fitter’s van was parked up and a man was busy mending Melissa’s front bay. She was a quiet young woman and Marnie felt so dreadfully guilty. She wouldn’t have known what to say to her – how would that conversation go? Hi, Melissa, sorry that my lover’s pregnant wife turned up and smashed up your house and car instead of mine. She slipped into the house thankful that Melissa wasn’t outside.

Marnie cancelled the hotel in Derbyshire. She contemplated going there alone rather than wasting the money but sleeping in a four-poster by herself would have been sadder than sad. She lost the hundred-pounds deposit, but she’d just have to write it off against her own stupidity.

At six o’clock, after scraping away a microwave meal for one that she couldn’t eat, her text alert rang and she leapt on it.

It was Caitlin. She couldn’t deny she wanted to see Justin’s name more on the screen but seeing her friend would be a very close second.

Marnie had planned not to leap on Caitlin as she walked in through the door but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to hug someone so badly. She needed someone to hug her even more.