Lock the Door by Jane Holland

Author:Jane Holland [Holland, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BluA
ISBN: 9781503941786
Published: 2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

I hear the slam of the front door early the next morning, and scramble out of bed and to the bedroom window just in time to see our car disappearing down the street.

Bewildered, I glance at the bedside clock.

07.10.

Stumbling downstairs, I find Jon’s briefcase and overcoat are both gone. He’s also taken the files and documents he was working on in the lounge last night. I open the front door pointlessly and peer out. The neatly shorn grass of our lawn is sparkling. The street is quiet, as it usually is at this hour. It is raining lightly, little dark speckles beginning to appear on paving stones and car windscreens, but the sun is shining at the same time.

Perhaps there will be a rainbow later.

He must have gone to the office early, I decide, and hope that by the time he returns from work this evening, he will be approachable again. Not the cold creature who dismissed me last night without any sign of love or affection.

Day four without Harry.

Whoever took him must have run out of medication by now.

The thought makes me despair.

I trudge back upstairs to the bathroom, but cannot find the energy for a shower. After a restless night, my hair needs brushing. Detangling, even. I stare at it helplessly, not sure where I left my comb.

I thought he was going to stay home from work until . . .

The faint sound of a telephone ringing makes me stop and listen. Not ours, of course, not loud enough. Next door’s, then. And being semi-detached, that means Treve and Camilla’s landline. Vaguely, I recall raised voices from last night, car headlights over the bedroom ceiling. I assumed they were having a row. But has something more serious happened, perhaps? I imagine a sick relative, a late-night mercy dash, and now more news, the phone ringing early before either of them has left for work.

The telephone stops ringing. I hear nothing more.

This is how sad my life has become, I think, gazing at myself in the bathroom mirror. Trapped in the house, living for other people’s phone calls.

I decide to get dressed for the day, not stay in my pyjamas on the assumption that nothing is going to happen. Then at least if my landline rings, or my mobile buzzes, and it’s news of Harry – good news, perhaps, that he has been found and is waiting for me – then I will be able to leave the house at once.

Today is the first day I do not bother with a nursing bra. I select one of my pregnancy bras instead, and am depressed to see that it fits, if a little tightly, the cups not quite big enough. Soon I will be able to wear my pre-pregnancy bras. The upside is that I can select a top that does not need to unbutton easily or is large enough to lift discreetly for feeding.

I wriggle into one of my old T-shirts, and consider myself in the mirror.

Not too bad.

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