After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

‘I’m not quitting. I’m giving in gracefully.’

Wisely, Pam didn’t reply.

Chapter Twenty-six

By the time Pam had breakfasted the next morning, Charley was still sleeping. Not wanting to wake her, Pam scrawled a note on the back of an envelope and left it on the kitchen table:

Had to go out. Back sometime later today. Don’t do anything drastic!

Love P

PS Red pepper and feta quiche for dinner.

The first thing Pam noticed when she pulled into her driveway was that Geoff’s car was there in its usual place, and that, mercifully, there wasn’t another car parked next to it. Rather belatedly it occurred to her that it would have been wise to have called him beforehand to check. She parked on auto-pilot next to his car, and headed indoors. As soon as she’d put the key in the lock and opened the front door she was struck by a momentary panic. What if that Barbara woman was there? In her home? Just because her car wasn’t there, didn’t mean she wasn’t, Pam realised. Involuntarily, her hand flew to her mouth, in a gesture of either shock or of suppressing nausea, possibly both. The thought of her being in her home, amongst her things, physically repulsed her. Oh God, why didn’t I think to phone ahead?

It was too late now, she was on the threshold. She wondered whether to call out, in case they were… well, she didn’t even want to think about what they might be doing. She compromised by shutting the door loudly before boldly walking into the kitchen. It’s my house, she reminded herself. Then, bracing herself for any potentially uncomfortable encounter, she added, I’ve every right to walk straight in.

She flung her keys in their usual place beside the fruit bowl and went over to flick the kettle on. It was empty, which irked her, since she always refilled it. Going over to the sink she saw Geoff outside in the garden – on his own, thank God – raking up the leaves from the lawn, just like he did every autumn. Yet somehow, the scene wasn’t the same. It was as if her world had spun round three hundred and sixty degrees and settled back in place but, crucially, slightly adrift or tilted from its starting point.

Pam watched him gather the leaves into a neat pile and thought back to when the boys were small and had mischievously grabbed handfuls of them and tossed them the air, scattering the leaves as quickly as Geoff could gather them. And how Geoff had chased them round the garden, pretending to be cross, before hurling them, one after the other, onto the heap of leaves, both boys squealing with mock fear. Where did those years go? If only you could hit ‘pause’ and hold back time before it charged away from you, blundering along ruthlessly and leaving you behind.

She sighed, and brusquely reminded herself that even if Josh hadn’t died, those days would still be over. She put the kettle on, and while it boiled, she went to pick up a few more things she needed at Charley’s.

As she walked through the house, memories of the boys came flooding back to her. All their secret midnight feasts she’d pretended not to know about, despite the almighty mess they’d always left in the kitchen. Luke breaking the kitchen window with his football, and the merciless pounding all the windows had taken from the inevitable barrage of snowballs whenever it snowed. The duvet dens they’d built on the turn in the stairs, and how furiously they had demanded the secret password before letting her pass. Mostly she’d managed to guess them, but at least once she’d had to clamber over the balustrade to get back down to the kitchen. She paused on the stairs, suddenly remembering Josh sitting on the bottom step to lace up his football boots, shedding dried mud and grass across the hall carpet.

‘Can’t you put them on outside?’ she’d queried.

‘It’s raining!’ he’d complained, as if it were entirely unreasonable of her to expect him to get wet putting his boots on, before going off to play an entire football match in the pouring rain. In her mind’s eye she could see him as clear as day, and when he looked up and gave her his trademark grin, her breath caught in her throat.

All those birthdays and Christmases, she thought, remembering their stockings pinned to the fire surround in the living room, the piles of presents under the tree, their advent calendars on the dresser in the hallway counting down the days, and the build-up of the tangible, almost physical, level of excitement that had filled the entire house. She laughed out loud, remembering the Christmas when thirteen-year-old Josh had been rendered helpless with giggles, and pretty much legless, too, after drinking cider for the first time, and how Luke had sworn blind Father Christmas had given them the cans in their stockings.

Then, when they were older, she remembered the chaos of their teenage parties, and falling over piles of grubby trainers dumped by the front door, signalling that the house would be full of gangly, long-legged teenagers, and then, of course, there was coming home after the funeral… No! Pam told herself sternly, not that memory. Expertly she nipped it in the bud. Carrying on up the stairs, she deliberately stopped herself glancing into Josh’s old room and marched straight into hers.

The bed was made and the room looked strangely unlived-in. Geoff’s dressing gown wasn’t hanging on the back of the door, and there were no stray items of clothing or dirty linen draped over the bed, no shoes kicked off and abandoned underneath it. He’s moved out, she thought, and moved in with her. He’s only come back to see to the damn garden. The thought panicked her. Sitting down hard on the bed, she was surprised to find herself close to tears. Not for Geoff, she realised, for herself. He’d left her and she was going to be