tiny corner of peace in her soul.
Finally she’d told someone, finally she’d admitted the truth, and the world hadn’t stopped turning. In fact, the world had carried happily on. Ciro hadn’t stared at her, utterly appalled. Instead, he’d told her a simple truth.
She wasn’t alone.
The world might be happily turning but she wasn’t the only one facing this type of problem and somehow it comforted her, somehow it gave her strength.
Paying the taxi driver, Harriet rummaged in her bag for her keys, turning them slowly in the lock and trying to creep in the front door without waking Drew, only this time it wasn’t because she was afraid of confrontation but because, quite simply, she wasn’t up to dealing with it right now. But when this was over, when her stomach was better, she was going to sit down with Drew and talk, really talk for once, find out where their marriage was exactly, and where, if anywhere, it was going. It was time to face the truth.
Literally!
Seeing them lying together, Harriet witnessed at first hand the passion that had been missing in this bed for so long now, that long blonde hair tumbling over the pillowcase, her pillowcase, the one that she, Harriet, had washed, ironed and put on! Facing a fact more appalling than any she had considered, for the second time that night, Harriet choked back bile, only a grumbling appendix had nothing to do with it.
‘Harriet!’
Shocked eyes, which she’d thought she’d known, snapped open as she turned on the light, her own eyes widening in disgusted horror as the blonde, thin beauty beside him uncoiled her tanned long limbs and taking in the scene had the gall to smirk somewhat defiantly over at Harriet.
‘Please, don’t try and tell me that it’s not what I think.’ Furious, embarrassed, Harriet turned and ran, taking the steps two at a time, shaking Drew off when he caught up with her, a hastily wrapped towel around his waist.
‘Harriet, please, don’t just walk out. We need to talk.’
‘Talk to me through your solicitor, Drew.’ She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘That’s why you were nice to me tonight. All that crap about getting me a hot-water bottle, pretending that you care, when all the time you were just glad I was going to work so your tart—’
‘Harriet, don’t be like that.’
‘What is she, then? What lady would get into someone else’s marital bed while the wife was out working? My God, Drew, I’ve worked my backside off to put you through acting school, put up with all your moods and insecurities when all you could get was a couple of walk-on parts, even upped and moved yet again, so you could take this job. And this is how you treat me. Don’t expect nice here, Drew, don’t expect me to smile and say it’s OK, as I have done over the years when you treat me like dirt…’
‘You need to calm down,’ he said. ‘We need to work out what we’re going to do—’
‘You mean we need to work out what we’re going to tell people?’ Harriet retorted bitterly. ‘Why? Are you worried that if the press find out that your new agent mightn’t be pleased, worried that your popularity ratings might dip for a week or two? That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t give a damn what this is doing to me, all you’re worried about is how it’s going to affect you! All those nights I’ve been working for us!’
‘You’ve been working because you love your job,’ Drew sneered.
‘Not that much, Drew!’ Harriet retorted. ‘Not sixty-hour weeks just so that you can pursue your dreams. The difference between you and I is that I didn’t constantly moan about it, didn’t assume the world was against me because I had to earn a living the hard way.’
‘Hard!’ Drew blazed. ‘Have you any idea what my work involves? The constant demands, the pressure to always look the part. All you have to do is pull on a uniform…’
On and on, the same old song she had danced to over the years, only this time it was a different tune. This time Harriet didn’t automatically back down, because the reason she was home at two in the morning was making itself known, the misery that had brought her to this moment was repeating itself, only this time when nausea struck she didn’t make a blind dash for the bathroom—she knew that there was no one to guide her, and it should have been mortifying, should have been the indignity to top them all, but seeing the horror in Drew’s eyes as she threw up on the smart cream carpet made her, for some inexplicable reason, want to laugh.
‘So my job’s easy, is it?’ Her defiant eyes met his. ‘Well, see how much you enjoy cleaning up someone else’s mess.’
The cool night air on her flaming cheeks as she burst out the front door slapped some sense into her. Harriet knew she should go back, knew she should demand that the other woman leave her home—Drew, too, for that matter—but lousy at confrontation at the best of times, all she wanted now was to be alone. She made her way to the bus shelter at the end of her street and sat for how long she didn’t know, staring at the tiny sliver of a new moon, eyes curiously dry as she gazed up to the skies. And at that moment she knew without reservation that her marriage was over, that, no matter what, there would be no going back.
Now what?
She didn’t know if she said it out loud, acutely aware now of the precariousness of her situation. Obviously unwell, she should be in bed, but there was no way she was going back there.
A hotel perhaps? Making to stand, she gave in even before the thought had formed—a searing pain forcing her back to the cold wooden bench.
Clutching her stomach, Harriet consoled herself that it had been a stupid idea anyway. How the hell was she supposed to get to a hotel when her car was back at Emergency and her keys were back at the house, along with her mobile phone, when all she had on her was a couple of coins for the Emergency vending machine and an ID badge hanging around her neck.
‘What am I going to do?’
This time she did say it out loud, teeth chattering as she clutched at her stomach, hating with a passion her appendix, which had chosen this time in her life to introduce itself to its owner. The bright lights of the phone booth across the road beckoned her to come over.
And it was the longest, loneliest walk of her life, the most difficult call she had ever made, picking up a telephone and dialling the emergency number, listening to the calm voice at the other end as she tried to fashion her mounting hysteria into a voice, to say the three little words that no one ever really wanted to say.
‘I need help!’
EVEN though it was the last thing she wanted to happen, the sound of the sirens in the distance were a welcome relief. The pain in Harriet’s stomach was so severe now she couldn’t even sit. All she could do was lie on the bench as the ambulance pulled up and the familiar faces of Max and Tara appeared, their green jumpsuits as familiar as her own nursing uniform, their tender professionalism everything she needed as they gently asked her what had happened.
‘I was unwell at work. The doctor thought I might have appendicitis…’
‘He
