Page 8 of The Happiest Ever After
She waddled out towards the lift and Polly headed for the ladies and did a repair job on her make-up. Nothing could be done about her eyes which were already puffed up after not much sleep. She’d lain in bed for ages wide awake, putting herself in Chris’s head, him imagining everything was fine and dandy and not having a clue that the woman he’d just tried to be intimate with would be leaving him at the weekend. She felt cunning and guilty and that wasn’t a combination that guaranteed a good kip.
She walked into the canteen and saw Sheridan in the far corner waving. She’d already got the drinks in and two enormous pieces of tiffin.
‘So, spill,’ ordered Sheridan. She’d never seen Polly cry before and she suspected it must be a big deal if she’d broken down at work.
‘Sorry about that, upstairs,’ Polly began. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m okay. Really.’
‘You’re so obviously not, you look like crap. Have you slept? Your eyes were all swollen up when you walked in, not that I would have said anything, although I just have,’ said Sheridan, who wasn’t one for mincing her words. And that’s what Polly really liked about her. She was an openbook; there was no pretence, no pretensions, nothing hiding in her to leap out and bite you.
Polly really didn’t want this, though. Sheridan was about to drop a baby and was full of joy and sunshine and hope and happiness; she shouldn’t burden her with her problems.
‘If,’ Sheridan then said, through a large mouthful of tiffin, ‘you are going to give me some bullshit that nothing is up because I’m pregnant and you think I shouldn’t be worrying, don’t waste your energy. You are not going to bring on my early labour by unpacking what’s going on in your head. In fact, if anything, I hope you do, so you’ve nothing to lose. Trust me, I’m a great listener. I’m also very nosey. So what was it in the words “Do you think you’ll ever get married” that caused that reaction? Hasn’t he asked you – Chris? Is it a sore point?’
When they’d got back together, Polly remembered Chris saying in bed once that when things had settled, maybe they should talk about ‘the next step’. She’d got a little giddy about it at the time, when she was all mixed-up and vulnerable, presuming he meant marriage, but looking back now, it might have meant joint custody of a pressure washer. He’d never mentioned it since, and she’d never brought it up because if he did propose, it had to come entirely from him to be viable.
‘No, he hasn’t asked me, but it’s not that.’ Polly swallowed a mouthful of nervous saliva.
‘What the hell is it then, Pol?’
Just say it, said a voice in Polly’s head. It felt too big to keep in, too weighty and uncomfortable and she needed to tell someone.
‘I’m leaving him.’
She had never spoken those words aloud to anyone andthey seemed especially harsh, hanging in the air like a trio of discordant bells. They sounded brutal, heartless, an assault on the eardrums.
‘Fuck,’ said Sheridan, eyes widening. ‘I thought you were going to say your sister-in-law’s wedding had made you feel a bit…why not us? I wasn’t expecting that. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Sheridan held up her hand and then answered her own question in a very miffed tone. ‘You didn’t want to offload onto the pregnant woman. I thought we were friends, Polly Potter.’
‘We are,’ said Polly. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to offload onto the pregnant woman.’
‘Drink your drink,’ said Sheridan after tutting at her. ‘I got you a hot chocolate. I thought it was more comforting than an Americano. You looked as if you needed some TLC,’ which nearly set Polly off crying again because it was these little considerations that made the world go round. She’d had so few of them from Chris, whom she wanted them from most of all, that they felt massive, stretched out of all proportion when she received them elsewhere. She’d really miss Sheridan when she left. They’d stay in touch but it wouldn’t be the same as seeing her every day and hearing her irreverent wit and playing their daft office games that made her laugh. She’d been a constant source of joy in her life since she took the office seat next to her two years ago, after Alan had died and the company was going through all the changes and Polly had felt sad and unsettled and in need of a friend.
‘Can I ask why?’ Sheridan shifted to a more comfortable position on the hard plastic chair. ‘I mean, I’ve never met your other half but I kind of got the impression you were… okay?’
Where to start? WithMe and Mrs Jones, she supposed.
‘Chris had an affair last year.’
‘What?’
Something else Sheridan hadn’t been expecting.
‘Is that when you lost all that weight and told me you’d been to Slimming World? Polly, you bloody liar.’
It was then. And she hadn’t said anything to Sheridan at the time because her mum hadn’t been well. But even so, Polly had never really been that open a person. She’d had a lot to deal with in her life, things she found too embarrassing and raw to share, so she’d just got on with dealing with it herself.
‘Did you know her?’ asked Sheridan.
‘All I knew about her was that she was called Mrs Jones. Or maybe she wasn’t, but that’s the name he’d stored her number under on his phone.’
‘How did you find out, Pol?’
‘We were in his van. It was April Fool’s Day of all dates. He’d just filled up with petrol and was paying. A text message from Mrs Jones popped up on the dashboard display; his phone Bluetooth was still connected, you see. The only Mrs Jones I knew lived next door to Chris’s mum and she kept an eye on her for him so I was worried something must be wrong. I didn’t think, I just pressed the “read out” button.’
Sheridan couldn’t have been more engrossed if she’d tried.
‘This robotic voice read out the message. “Thank you for yesterday. I haven’t come so hard in ages. When are we doing it again? When can you sneak away?”?’
Word for word, she’d never forgotten it.
