Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (20 page)

They wriggled their way into the cramped space, with the few people who were there eyeing Esther with a little confusion. She looked stunning, but she was overdressed in her short cocktail dress. Not that Charlie cared – he did get to go home with her, after all. Let them stare.

Charlie took his time scanning the menu, wishing he could abandon the car overnight and get a taxi home. A glass of wine really would go down fabulously at that moment but Esther also had her eye on the drinks menu and, given the choice of him or her, if she was planning on getting a little tipsy, then he was all for it. Her being a little tiddly in that dress meant one thing… well, hopefully.

When the waitress returned, they ordered starters and mains, with Esther taking a large glass of fizzy white wine.

Conversation came surprisingly easy considering how things had been. The pub was a real find: hundreds of years old, with sturdy thick bricks that wouldn’t flinch under the onslaught of a hurricane.

Esther nodded towards the fireplace in the centre of the room. There were thick brick pillars that matched the rest of the walls and a deep pit where the logs would go. ‘It’d be nice to come back here in the winter,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we can go for a walk one Sunday morning up in the hills? It’ll be muddy and wet but we can dry out in front of the fire and have something to eat before going home.’

A gentle grin crept across Esther’s face before she leaned in, lowering her voice. ‘I might not be able to walk that far by then.’

She leaned back rubbing the area underneath her stomach as if the initial hint hadn’t been enough. It was the first time she’d mentioned being pregnant in a little while. Charlie had never thought of children as a priority – until Esther started talking about it at the same time as they were looking for a house. He’d been looking for somewhere close to where his company wanted to move them; she’d been looking for space so that they could start a family. From there, the idea had been as much his as hers. She’d only stopped talking about it when they’d actually moved – and then when everything had happened with Dougie, he hadn’t known where that left things. Esther wouldn’t let him touch her, meaning the chances of a child were zero before they’d even got to the point where they stopped speaking to each other.

Their starters arrived and Esther knocked back half of her wine before she’d finished eating.

Slowly, the pub began to fill up as locals came in to have something to eat after work. As ever in England when the sun was out, people were actually smiling and saying hello to each other. When the wind, rain and general squall set in, strangers never said a word to each other unless it was to complain about the weather. Now, couples were entering with smiles on their faces and then either sitting to eat, hanging around the bar, or getting a drink and heading back outside again.

It was only when their plates were cleared away that Charlie realised Esther had eaten everything. It was only the starter – but still more food than he’d seen her eat in a couple of weeks. The waitress replaced Esther’s glass with a full one and Charlie relaxed into his seat telling Esther about the disaster of the stag party from the previous day when he stopped mid-sentence, Eamonn’s warning dropping into his mind.

Charlie stared at the man who had just walked through the door at the back of the pub: thick shoulders, bald head, grey eyes.

‘…
In the end, I was seeing him everywhere – anytime there was a bald guy, I’d think it was him
…’

It couldn’t be Dougie, could it?

As the waitress went to greet him, the bald man held up two fingers and from behind him, breezing through the back door in a pair of short denim cut-offs and a low-cut top, was Leah.

‘What’s wrong?’ Esther asked, but Charlie could do nothing but stare.

Esther twisted, making a slight squeaking sound as she saw them.

‘How did they find us?’ she hissed.

Charlie had no answer – he was sure they hadn’t been followed by anyone.

The waitress showed Dougie and Leah to a table near the front of the pub but Leah shook her head, threading her way back through the dining area until she was two tables away from Charlie and Esther, between them and the fireplace. They sat and gave their drinks orders, all the time watching each other, not acknowledging that Charlie and Esther were there.

‘What do we do?’ Esther whispered, eyes wide, fixed on Dougie.

‘I don’t know.’

Not only were Dougie and Leah inexplicably in the same place they were, but they were going out of their way not to look at him or Esther. It’d be better if one of them said something, even nodded, waved, or…
something
. Charlie glanced sideways where he could see Leah reaching across the table, stroking Dougie’s hand. They were whispering to each other far too quietly to be overheard.

Leah burst out laughing, pointing over Dougie’s shoulder to something out of sight. They both turned, both looked at the bar, the fireplace, each other – anywhere except to the small inlet where Charlie and Esther were sitting.

‘Shall we go?’ Esther asked.

‘I don’t know – we’re going to have to stop to pay anyway.’

Esther had shrunk in front of him. Instead of the open body language and hair-twirling flirtation, she had creased over in her chair, trying to hide behind a non-existent screen. Seeing her like that, Charlie wondered why he’d ever had a moment of hesitation when Dougie claimed that Esther had a thing for him. What did that say about his own insecurities?

They sat in an uncomfortable silence listening as the din from the people around them rose. Soon the waitress returned with their main courses, smilingly oblivious to what was going on as she hurried away to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with meals for Dougie and Leah.

Charlie ate as quickly as he could, barely registering what he was shovelling in. Esther simply mashed everything into one, not even pretending to eat. Charlie risked a sideways glance, noticing that Dougie and Leah were already eating main courses, leaving the very real prospect that they were going to finish at the same time. Spurred on, he ate so quickly that the back of his tongue was burning, with his stomach growling in protest, not hunger.

Esther continued playing.

The next time the waitress came anywhere near them, Charlie waved to get her attention and asked for the bill. As soon as it arrived, he dropped the cash on the table and the pair of them hurried out of the rear of the pub, not risking a glance backwards.

TWENTY-FOUR: ESTHER

Esther lay awake for hours after Charlie had dozed off, trying to figure out how Dougie knew where they were. Charlie said they weren’t followed, so what did that leave? Had Dougie planted some sort of tracker on their car? Did he know someone at the pub? That only opened up many more questions about how the people in the pub would know who they were. The truth was, he
couldn’t
have known where they were unless he’d followed them. His blue car had been parked next to theirs in the pub car park, so he hadn’t even used a different vehicle to throw them off.

As she stared into the darkness of the room, the irrationality of sleep deprivation began to play tricks with Esther’s mind. If Dougie and Leah hadn’t followed them and people in the restaurant couldn’t have tipped him off, then that left only Charlie. It had been his idea to go out in the first place, his idea for them – her specifically – to get dressed up. Had he suggested that because he was going to tip Dougie off and see how everyone reacted? Did he really believe her when she said she hadn’t come onto another man?

Charlie tossed, turned, snored, but slept. The bastard. How was it fair that he could simply doze off and she couldn’t? She really didn’t want to start taking the tablets again, not that the half-pills had continued to work anyway. She didn’t know if you could become immune to them – but the gap between her taking one and falling asleep had been increasing until they were barely working at all.

She dug the tub out from the back of the bed and emptied them into her hand – there were only eight halves left. Esther reached into the dark corners next to the bed, narrowly avoiding knocking her glass of water over before wrapping her fingers around it. She popped four of the halves into her mouth and swallowed half the glass in one, then lay back on the bed, staring at the red numbers of the clock that flicked from one to the next all too quickly. Fifteen minutes passed before her eyelids began to feel heavy and then…

…Charlie’s alarm was beeping far too loudly as the first wisps of morning crept over the top of the curtains. He rolled over, thumping the side table trying to find it, before the noise finally stopped.

Esther’s mind felt sluggish. She knew she was in the bedroom with Charlie but there were a few seconds where she couldn’t quite remember everything had happened.

In an almost overwhelming moment of realisation, it all came flooding back. Esther curled her knees up to her chest, shivering slightly, even though she could feel how warm it was.

‘Are you okay?’

She was facing away from him but Esther could sense Charlie watching her.

She didn’t turn. ‘Yes.’

‘It had to be a coincidence. He didn’t follow us.’

‘I know.’

‘Esther.’

‘What?’

‘Look at me.’

Esther felt Charlie’s weight on the bed as he sat down. Reluctantly, she twisted in the sheets, ending up with it wrapped around her neck and fighting to escape. Charlie’s bottom half was dressed but his chest was bare. Whether it was the light in the room, she wasn’t sure but he looked pasty and less well-built than she remembered, even though she slept next to him each night.

She blinked her eyes awake until they were accustomed to the light. ‘What?’

‘I love you.’

She gulped – he hadn’t said that in a while.

‘I love you too.’

Charlie reached across, brushing her chin with the backs of his fingers. ‘That’s not what you usually say.’

The warmth and smell of his touch sent her spiralling back to different days: dancing until she could barely move at university; cramped student digs; stolen hours when she was supposed to be revising; Saturday afternoons playing pool in the pub, trying to make a fiver last an entire evening; snogging on the back seat of the bus and not caring who saw…

‘Say it again,’ she said.

Charlie paused, waiting for a car to go past outside. When the room was silent, he leaned in, breathing the words into her ear. ‘I love you.’

‘So you sodding well should.’

He slipped his hand away, laughing. ‘That’s more like it.’

Esther pushed herself up until she was sitting. She watched as he picked a shirt from his wardrobe and started to button it.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ Charlie asked.

‘Of course.’

‘What about us?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Are
we
going to be all right?’

‘Why do you ask?’

He finished buttoning his top and began hunting through a drawer for a tie. In many ways it was better that he wasn’t facing her. Some conversations were easier to have with someone’s back.

‘Because we’ve let them come between us and I reckon that’s what they want.’

Esther started to say something and then stopped herself. Charlie was right but it wasn’t that simple. Was the mistrust a symptom of something deeper in their relationship that was always going to come to the fore at some point, or was it as basic as he was trying to make out?

Biting her bottom lip, Esther watched as Charlie finished swishing the tie around into a knot and then pulled on his jacket.

When he stopped to peer at her, she realised she couldn’t meet his eye.

‘I think I’ve got a problem,’ Esther whispered.

‘What problem?’

‘With the locks.’ She reached under the pillow and dropped the varying window and door keys onto the duvet. ‘I like having them near me. I make sure the windows are locked two or three times a day. I know it’s stupid and want to stop but I can’t. It’s like they’re calling me, whispering that they’re really open, even though I know they’re closed.’

She croaked the final few words, knowing how ridiculous it sounded but feeling a sense of relief that she’d actually been able to say it out loud.

‘Do you want to see someone about it?’

‘No.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Charlie sat on the bed again. ‘How long have we known each other?’

‘Too long.’

Charlie smiled softly. ‘I was going to say “about nine years” but that’s probably true as well. Anyway, my point was going to be that I didn’t fall in love with you because you were a hot, thin, slightly tipsy, blonde in an amazing purple dress at the back of a student pub.’ He paused, cracking into a much wider grin. ‘…okay, well maybe that was part of the reason.’

Esther giggled. Charlie had been so clumsy in talking to her that night that she’d continued the conversation largely for her own amusement. His opening line had been ‘Aren’t the floors sticky in here?’, half spoken to her chest. As chat-up lines went, it wasn’t really up there, although, given they were still together nine years on, it had worked.

Charlie reached across and put an arm around her. ‘Anyway, the other reason – the bigger reason – is that I fell in love with you because you’re your own person. If you want to deal with whatever this is by yourself then I know you can do it. If you need my help then I’ll do whatever I can.’

Esther reached across him, feeling the strength in his chest and arms. This was why she’d fallen for him. Despite his ungainly opening line, when he needed to, he always knew what to say.

She took a deep breath, holding back the tears as they clung to each other until Charlie eventually unlinked his arms from her, breathing that he had to go.

Esther listened for him going down the stairs, waiting for the cry that didn’t come to say something was wrong. He opened the front door and she heard the click of the lock, counting the seconds until his engine started.