Page 32 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
She went up to her flat, locked the door and exhaled. There was such a lot to think about. So many things had changed in one afternoon.
14
ONCE PATSY HAD explained the whole story to Oliver the next morning, he suggested Patsy stay at the flat above the coffee house so that she wouldn’t have to walk home from the coffee house at night.
‘Just for a few days until you’re feeling more solid. Surely if he’s going to turn up again it’ll be fairly soon and at least it’s safer here, in the middle of town.’ If Oliver was shocked at her revelations, he didn’t say. All he had asked was for the details of what had happened at the cinema.
‘Thanks Ollie. I think that would be good.’ She took his hand and concentrated hard on fiddling with his fingers before she spoke. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You’re the only reason that I managed to get back on my feet and you deserved to know.’
He pulled her into a tight hug. ‘I knew there was something,’ he said gently, ‘but I knew you’d tell me when you were ready. But now I know, I can help. For starters, we’ll be more vigilant about making sure there’s someone with you when you’re at the cinema.’
Patsy went back to making sandwiches while they chatted. ‘Okay, thanks. But just for now. Seeing Dan has spooked me but actually, it’s no different to what it was like when I first left, thinking he’d be around every corner. I can’t live like that again.’
‘Give yourself time though, Pats.’
He was also on at her to tell Ed what had happened and was all for asking him to come over and stay with her but that was a step too far. She and Ed were still getting to know each other and landing this kind of drama on him would frighten him off. Besides, she couldn’t get over the fact that Ed had been in the building at the same time and if it wasn’t for him insisting on not being disturbed unless they’d arranged to see each other in advance, he might have been there when Dan appeared. She knew it wasn’t fair of her to think that but she couldn’t help it.
In the end Oliver had shrugged and said it was up to her but that if it was Amy in a similar situation, he’d want to know. Well, of course he would but Oliver and Ed were very different and Patsy wasn’t sure how Ed would cope with a potential ex-husband stalker problem. And the other slight problem was that it would mean her having to tell Ed that technically, she was still married.
The next morning, still in bed at the flat above the coffee house, she heard the door unlock downstairs. It made her jump, her body instantly on high alert, even though she knew it would be Oliver. She pulled the duvet up to her chin and waited. The next thing she heard was the coffee machine whirring so she relaxed back into the pillow and closed her eyes again until she heard a soft tap at the door.
‘Hey, Pats. Are you awake?’
‘Yes, come in.’ She pushed herself up to sitting as Oliver came in with coffee for both of them.
‘Did you sleep okay?’
‘Yes, I did once I got off.’
‘So how do you feel this morning?’
She sighed. ‘It was better only having to come up here last night instead of walking home. I don’t know. Now I’m over the shock of seeing him, it’s made me realise what a mess I left behind. I mean, I have no idea how to go about getting divorced from someone you don’t want to see again or if that’s even possible.’
‘I don’t know either. Maybe you could talk to Toby?’
Patsy nodded.
‘You’ve been living hand to mouth in that crappy little flat and all the time he could have been supporting you, financially.’
‘He doesn’t have to do that and I don’t want anything from him.’
‘Legally or morally, you should have been able to come away with something, Pats.
‘He’s been in prison.’
‘Christ, has he? What for?’
‘It was for fraud. He was an accountant and the company we worked for had this charity thing where if you paid for something on their website, you could round up and the difference would go to their charity of the month.’
‘Right, I’ve seen that loads of times online.’
‘Well, he was in charge of the admin of that and diverted a tiny amount of each transaction into his own account. It was a while before anyone noticed and he’d taken thousands. They froze all of our assets because everything was in his name in the end.’ She still hadn’t told Oliver exactly how Dan had slowly engineered everything so that she had nothing but it was the first time she’d told anyone even a tiny part of what had happened and it felt cathartic to share the story.
‘So, you had nothing?’
She nodded. ‘I had to take my chance and leave. I didn’t care about the house or anything else, it didn’t matter. But now that I’ve met Ed, I suppose Dan turning up has reminded me that we’re still married and you can’t run away from that.’
‘Are you going to tell Ed about that?’
