The Other Woman(21)

‘W-well . . . when will you be going?’ she stuttered.

‘Tomorrow!’ we both exclaimed.

She looked like somebody had pushed her, as she slumped back into the chair, the air sucked out of her.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Adam asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Pammie shook herself, and it took her a few seconds to find her voice. ‘So, where will you stay?’ she asked eventually.

‘I’ve booked a really nice hotel for a couple of nights,’ said Adam. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her, but I didn’t want to impose.’

I felt ridiculously triumphant. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her,’ I repeated in a sing-song voice in my head. ‘So there.’ I lambasted myself for being so immature.

‘Oh, well, I’m shocked,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’

I wondered why she thought she should.

‘Linda said she’ll have us up for lunch,’ said Adam. ‘She’ll get Fraser and Ewan over. I’d like Emily to meet them all.’

‘Goodness, this is a surprise,’ said Pammie, patting Adam’s hand. ‘Well, that’s lovely, just lovely.’

The conversation was stilted whilst we waited for our main course. I greeted my seabass like an old friend, thankful to have something to focus my attention on. When Adam excused himself to go to the toilet, I wanted to run in there with him.

‘So, things are moving along pretty quickly, then?’ said Pammie, without waiting for the gents’ door to close.

‘Mmm,’ I smiled tightly.

‘How long have you been together now?’ she asked, pursing her lips to take a sip of her white wine spritzer.

‘Four months.’

‘Goodness, that’s no time at all,’ she said, a fixed grin on her face.

‘It’s not always about time, though, is it?’ I questioned, careful to keep my voice light. ‘It’s about how you feel.’

‘Indeed, it is,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘And you feel that Adam is the one?’

‘I hope so.’ I didn’t want to give her any more than necessary.

‘And you think he feels the same?’ she asked, with a withering look on her face, as if she was dealing with a naive child.

‘I would hope so. We’re practically living together, so yeah . . .’ I deliberately left it hanging, as if I was almost willing her to say something else, yet knowing that I wouldn’t want to hear it.

‘You’d be wise to back off a bit,’ she said. ‘He likes his own space, and if you crowd him, you’ll have him running for the hills.’

‘Has he said something?’ I couldn’t help myself. Her mouth had spread into a smug grin, and I instantly wished I could tie a knot in my tongue.

‘Just this and that,’ she said dismissively, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to leave it there.

‘Like what?’ I asked. ‘This and that what?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual. How he feels hemmed in. How he has to answer to you every time he wants to step outside the front door.’

A rush of heat spread across my chest. Was that how I made him feel? Don’t be ridiculous, I remonstrated with myself. We’re an equal partnership. That’s not who we are. What we’re about. But then I caught sight, in my mind’s eye, of me having a go at him for coming in late last Thursday. And on Sunday, I’d asked how long he’d be at the gym for. Was I that person? Was he tired of being questioned, to the point he’d tell his mother?

I looked at her as my brain frantically whirred away and wondered, not for the first time, whether she knew what she was doing. Or had I got it all wrong? Again?

Sensing Adam walking back towards us, she grinned and put her hand over mine.

‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ she said cheerily, her voice saccharin sweet, like butter wouldn’t melt.

‘So, is she just some batty old woman who’s lonely and bored?’ asked Pippa, when Adam dropped me back after the meal. He’d wanted me to stay at his, but Pammie had left me mentally exhausted and I wanted to go home.

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders.

‘Or is it more spiteful than that?’ Pippa went on in her most sinister voice. ‘Is she playing some kind of game here?’

‘I really don’t know,’ I offered honestly. ‘Sometimes, I think it’s just silly pettiness, but then something gnaws away at me, chipping and chipping until I’m convinced she’s a bitter, jealous psychopath.’

‘Whoa, wait up a minute, let’s calm down a bit here,’ Pippa said, hands aloft. ‘She’s sixty-three, isn’t she?’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So, I can’t think of too many psychotic sexagenarians, that’s all.’

I had to laugh. The whole thing sounded ridiculous when it was said aloud, and I made a mental note to remind myself of that the next time I let it get to me.





9

The text read: Of course. Would be lovely to see you son. What time do you think you’ll be here? I do hope she isn’t off cavorting. It happens so often these days. Mum x

What? I read it again. What the hell was Pammie talking about? I scrolled through my message history. The last text I’d sent her was a reluctant ‘Thank you’ for my birthday dinner the week before.