Desperately Seeking... by Evelyn Cosgrave

Author:Evelyn Cosgrave
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-14-190269-2
Publisher: Penguin Group UK
Published: 2008-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

11

I hadn’t been expecting it. If pressed, I’d have said that I never expected to see him again. He’d been wiped from the universe, and while I might bump into his wife in the odd department-store changing room, he had ceased to exist. Yet there he was, standing in the doorway to my flat, one hand resting on the upper jamb, the rest of him sort of hanging in the door frame. If I’d had time to register who he was I would have closed the door. I wasn’t interested in starting all that again, but he had stepped inside before I was fully aware that he, Daniel O’Hanlon, was standing in front of me.

Then I tried to get out of the door myself, but that wasn’t going to happen. He shut it and wedged himself in front of it to prevent me going anywhere. He looked wretched. His suit was crumpled, as if he had been wearing it for several days without a pressing. His shirt was wide open at the collar and seemed grimy. His skin was greasy, his hair matted and thin. It took me only seconds to get a picture of a man under duress. I was trying to push past him but he grabbed my arms and pinned me against the wall. Immediately he let go, holding up his hands in surrender.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I just want to talk for a minute. Just a minute. Then I’ll go, I promise.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I said firmly.

‘Just for a minute.’

‘I have nothing to say to you.’

‘I needed to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Please go, Daniel.’

‘Just hear me out.’

‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I’m engaged now. I’m getting married.’

‘I’ve missed you so much. You’re beautiful, Kate.’

He made a pathetic picture: a middle-aged man in need of a wash and a shave, spouting garbage to a woman who had no use for him.

‘Daniel, there’s nothing to say. We’re finished. We were finished that day when you dumped me. So turn round and get out of here, or I’m calling the police.’

‘I love you, Kate.’

‘I’m calling the police. And your wife. I’m calling your wife to come and take you away.’

‘My marriage is over, Kate. It was over from the day I met you.’

‘That’s bollocks and you know it. Go on home to your wife,’ I shouted. ‘Go on home to your wife and your new baby.’

‘It’s over, Kate. It’s you I love. It’s always been you.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Don’t say that. It’s true. I love you. I’m leaving her.’

‘Look, Daniel, you can leave your wife all you like, just not on my account.’

‘We can have a life together, Kate. I should never have pushed you away.’

‘You didn’t push me away,’ I almost spat at him. ‘You dumped me in no uncertain terms. You dropped me, just like you picked me up in the first place, on a whim. I don’t know what’s going on with you at the moment, maybe you’re

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