Waves of Betrayal (The Isabel Marsh Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

Good morning my darling,

We thought it would be best to leave you to rest. We’ll be back tomorrow morning as early as visiting hours allow. I spoke to Joan again last night and she has made a delightful suggestion which we really hope you will take her up on!

Sleep well Izzy,

Lots of love from mum and dad xxxx

PS don’t worry about Sasha. We picked her up last night.

Lying back against the pillows, listening to the trolleys rattling outside the curtains, she thinks about her little cottage. Will Paul have been in and taken his things? She can’t imagine ever possibly living there again with all those memories. Then, suddenly, a new emotion begins to surge through her veins. Struggling with the feeling of self-pity, she wipes away the threatening tears angrily and reaches out for her mobile amongst the “essentials”.

She sits bolt-upright in the hospital bed, her head uncomfortably pressed against the hard plastic, as the pillow slips down below her shoulders and she waits for an answer.

‘It’s me,’ she says in a toneless voice ‘Listen I haven’t called for a chat. I want all of your stuff, and I mean
all
of it, every single piece of shit that you may have lying around,
out
of the cottage by two o’clock this afternoon,’ she says with an aggression that scares even herself.

‘Oh shit, Iz, please, we need to talk. You’re not thinking straight. It didn’t mean anything. I was stupid, such a bloody idiot. I love you so much Isabel, please...’ It actually sounds as though he is crying.

‘Maybe you should have considered all that when you were off shagging our neighbour and threatening my friends. I
mean
it Paul, you and all of your crap has to be out by two o’clock today.’

Isabel ends the call quickly, not wanting to hear his pleading. She tries a calming intake of breath but it comes out in a jagged spasm and, with shaking hands, she puts her phone on silent and returns it to the table. She closes her eyes, trying to stop the tears that sting the raw grazing on her cheek.

‘Good morning my love,’ a friendly lady in a white dress and a pair of green rubber clogs appears, smiling, through the curtains. ‘I’m Mary. Don’t worry, I’m not here to prod or poke you, just to offer you a bit of breakfast if you feel up to it. Plenty left, you’re about the only one who isn’t ‘nil by mouth’ this morning!’ she chuckles, as if she were working in a friendly B&B!

Mary’s mood is infectious and Isabel surprises herself when she smiles back and asks for a cup of tea and a yoghurt, if they have one.

Mary supplies both, including a little packet of biscuits ‘in case you feel peckish later on’ she winks, giving her patient’s arm a motherly stroke on the way out. ‘The Doctor will be around in a little while so you just sit there and enjoy your tea luvvie.’
What a difference a friendly face makes
, thinks Isabel. She crosses her ankles, looking down at her bruised fingers and wonders how she’s going to wash her hair with one hand!

After Doctor Cole has examined her stitches she declares Isabel fit to leave that afternoon, as long as she has someone to stay with. Isabel begins to feel afraid again. Her mum was right. She’d have to stay with them for a few weeks. She’ll need help bathing for a start and the thought of returning to the cottage alone is way too much of a big step at the moment, with or without Paul’s belongings still there. She checks her phone. Sixteen missed calls and seven messages. All from Paul. She resists the overwhelming temptation to read them and, instead, calls her mum asking her to bring clean clothes, telling her that she’ll be going home with them later.

Isabel feels as though she has been lying awake for hours when she hears a pair of heels clipping briskly towards her bed. Rachel!

‘Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see someone in my life,’ squeals Isabel and Rachel hurries to her bedside, examining her face with a deep look of concern.

‘Oh Izzy, you could have really hurt yourself. Look at you!’

Isabel touches her face self-consciously as Rachel’s attention is drawn to her hand. ‘Your fingers!!!’ she gasps, theatrically.

‘Rachel, it’s fine. I’m ok. It could have been a lot worse. The fingers will heal in about four weeks and I haven’t even seen my face yet. No mirrors in here. Some luxury hotel this is, eh?!’

She hears a shuffling from behind the curtain and Rachel turns to look at her friend. ‘Claire’s here to see you too, Iz.’ Rachel steps away slowly and pulls back the curtain as Claire promptly bursts into uncontrollable sobs as she sees her friend propped up in the bed. Cries of regret, guilt and, most of all, relief that her best friend is alive and willing to talk to her.

‘Claire! How on earth could you think that you having a girlfriend was ever going to make a difference to our friendship?!’ Isabel pats the space on the bed next to her where Claire reluctantly perches, afraid to look her friend in the eyes.

‘I know, I should have told you,’ she sniffs, dabbing her nose with a scrunched up ball of soggy tissue, shaking her head. ‘He told me it was nothing. She meant nothing to him. I actually felt sorry for him for a while. He was so distraught that I might tell you. It was only when he saw me with Lisa and I saw the look of triumph on his face, that I realised that he had no intention of finishing his sordid little affair.’ She looks up at Isabel, her eyes wide and bloodshot, pleading ‘Can you please forgive me? I never would have been able to live with myself if anything had happened to you.’

‘Claire, I already have, you silly mare. Come here.’ She hugs her friend as tightly as she can, wincing in pain. Letting one hand drop, she looks over the top of Claire’s head at Rachel, grabbing her hand and mouthing a silent “thank you!”.

As if on cue, Louise and Duncan arrive in a flurry, carrying a neat little overnight bag full of fresh clothes for Isabel and the mention of a “surprise”. Both friends smile widely at Isabel as she realises that, they too, are in on whatever “it” is.

‘Whaaaat?’ Isabel asks guardedly, studying the scheming expectant faces of her audience.

‘I spoke to Joan again this morning Iz,’ starts Louise ‘I told her everything this time and, well, she would like to offer you something. A little time away, to help you to recover, to think.’

‘
Away?!’
Isabel asks, already shaking her head, ‘what do you mean? Where? I can’t just go away!’

‘Of course you can,’ beams Rachel, ‘Joan’s son has a little town-house in a place called Torremolinos in Southern Spain. They’ve said that you can go and stay there for as long as you like over the summer. They’re not going to use it until October.’

‘Torremolinos?’ asks Isabel in disbelief, ‘have you all gone totally mad? My life has just fallen apart, I could have been killed by that car and you’re suggesting I go and sip Sangría on a sunny beach on the Costa del Sol??’ her voice reaches a breathless squeak.

‘
Yes!’
they all sing in unison, breaking out into peals of laughter.

‘Isabel, it doesn’t have to be all Flamenco and straw donkeys! It’s a very quiet area, just across the road from the sea,’ says Louise persuasively. ‘A good three miles or so from the Centre of town.’

‘
And
apparently it has a private roof terrace,’ adds Rachel.

‘With a hot tub! I mean, my word Isabel, it’s exactly what you need right now,’ nods Claire encouragingly.

‘And guess what?’ squeals Rachel excitedly, doing a little celebratory shuffle in her heels, gripping Isabel’s unbandaged hand, ‘I’m coming with you!!!’

Isabel laughs lightly and drops her head back onto the pillow in comic resignation, ‘well, why didn’t you say...?!! When do we go?!!’

Rachel leans forward and gushes, ‘we’ve booked flights for in two weeks’ time. Give yourself a bit of time to recover first. Yours is an open ticket but I’m due some holiday anyway so I can stay for a week with you! Help you to settle in!’

‘Settle in?! Rachel, you’re talking as if I’m an expat already!’

‘Well darling, I for one think that a holiday is precisely what you
do
need,’ says Louise firmly, ‘you can’t mope around the cottage all summer. Your father and I will sort everything with the rental agency and we’ll change the locks as soon as that slime-ball Paul has collected his things.’ She glances at the three girls, proud to be a part of the plot to cheer her daughter up.

Isabel nods her head slowly. It seems that everyone has plans for her, except herself. For the moment though, she is too drained to put up any kind of struggle. Being taken by the hand and looked after is exactly what she needs, she realises sadly.

I
sabel wakes to the familiar scent of her mum’s washing powder on her pillow and feels strangely comforted. She has been signed-off work for the rest of the term and has two weeks to take things easy before her trip to Spain! She pads over to the window on the soft fitted carpet and opens the curtains. She is almost relieved to see that it is an overcast day, as she has no overwhelming urge to go anywhere today.

She sees Sasha running around on the large, immaculate lawn and hopes that she doesn’t start digging in the pristine flower beds.

There is a soft knock on the door and Louise appears, carrying a pretty tray laden with a little tea pot, a china cup and saucer, and four triangles of toast coated in a thick layer of marmalade. Her favourite!

‘Oh mum, you should do B&B you know! Thank you, but I could have come downstairs!’

‘Nonsense! I haven’t had the chance to look after my little girl properly since you left home for University, eight years ago,’ she says, straightening the duvet cover over Isabel’s knees and placing the tray on her lap. ‘Earl Grey, no milk or sugar!’

‘Thanks mum. I thought I’d just potter around here today if that’s ok? Maybe even watch a bit of TV?’

The morning passes in a lazy blur of property-, antiques-, and holiday-programmes. Then, after a soak in the enormous en-suite corner bath, Isabel puts on the fluffy yellow robe that always hangs on the back of the door and manages to pull a brush through her tangled hair. She can only use her one good hand. Assessing her injuries in the mirror, she discovers that, apart from the stitches on her chin, if she wears her hair loose it almost covers the sore asphalt-burns down her cheek.

She finds her mum making a plate of sandwiches in the kitchen. ‘Feeling more relaxed sweetie? The weather has cheered up so I thought we’d sit outside and eat these together.’

Isabel looks through the living room to the inviting patio and sees Sasha basking in the sun on the wooden decking. She saunters past the beige sofa with its huge plump cushions, the large dining table with leather-backed chairs, photos of family holidays on the shelves. Her graduation picture, grandparents, pets, so many happy memories.
This is what I wanted so much with Paul
, she thinks, just as tears start to fill her eyes again.

How well mum knows me
, she thinks, when she reaches the patio table to find a jug of ice cold Pimms and two glasses already set out for them. She grabs a chair and settles herself on the thick, padded cover. She pulls her knees up towards her chest, with her heels resting on the seat. She pours two glasses of the delicious pink liquid and takes a sip, leaning her head back, savouring the taste and the warmth of the sun on her face.
Maybe Spain isn’t such a bad idea after all? Mind you
, she thinks, gazing down at her bare toes,
I may need to paint my nails before I go!

P
aul notices the curtain twitch at Joan’s house next door. He puts his key in the door of the cottage and quickly closes it behind him. He’s not sure of how much the old lady knows but he stands with his back against the door for a few minutes, his eyes tightly closed, hoping to god that she doesn’t know about him using her house that night for his fiery affair with Jules. He stands there, frozen for a few minutes, wondering what on earth he will say in his defence if she knocks on the other side of the door. He doesn’t hear anything, but begins to feel a bit light-headed, a he realises that he has been holding his breath the whole time.

He exhales slowly and makes his way through to the kitchen, running his fingers over the fabric of the sofa and taking in the little shells on the fireplace that he and Isabel had collected from the beach last summer.

‘Shit! Why did I have to be such a fucking idiot’ he asks himself angrily, taking in the homely surroundings that he will have to leave behind because of his stupid, impulsive behaviour.

He remembers her face the last time he saw her. They were going to have such a lovely afternoon together and then he saw her loving, casual gaze turn to confusion, anger, and hatred. Standing with her phone to her ear, protecting it from the wind. At first, he remembers thinking that maybe something had happened to Duncan or Louise but as she spun around and finally looked him in the eyes, he realised that she knew. She knew everything.

He sinks to the floor against the washing machine, his hands covering his face. ‘Shit!’ he says again, louder, as he begins to cry, realising that he has probably lost Isabel forever. It was only supposed to be a bit of fun and Jules was so young and fit. He lets his hands fall by his sides and shakes his head, feeling desperately ashamed. How could he hurt the woman, whom he genuinely loves, for some stupid macho ego boost and a few hours of sex that really meant nothing? How could he make her understand?

He decided that the best thing he could do was to come here, to the house, and do what she asked. Remove his things from their home and give her some space. Show her that he is willing to co-operate. Show her that he is sorry, beg for her forgiveness. Once she sees the house, the empty wardrobe, his coat gone from the hook by the front door, she’ll miss him. She’ll want him back and he will prove to her that he loves her more than anyone. He’ll get down on one knee when she forgives him and ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.

‘She’ll say yes,’ he whispers to himself, ‘we love each other.’

He pulls himself up onto his feet and pads through the living room, picking up a photo of the two of them at a friend’s wedding three years ago.
That had been the weekend before we moved in here
, he thinks, gently rubbing his finger over Isabel’s beautiful face. He remembers how his friends had been envious of him, having such a pretty girlfriend. She was wearing a stunning turquoise beaded dress, which just skimmed her knees, and high heeled silver sandals. She had been to the hairdressers that morning and wore her hair half pinned-up with little shiny diamonds woven through it. He daren’t even imagine what she would look like on their own wedding day!