The Great Escape: The laugh-out-loud romantic comedy from the summer bestseller

‘Oh, poor you,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. Just get well …’

‘But I’ve ruined your night,’ Mia wailed.

‘It doesn’t matter, honestly.’ Hannah caught the man’s eye as she finished the call.

How could she start talking to him? All her life, Hannah had stumbled into relationships with no chatting up required, and now the only thing she could think to mention was how much she hated ‘Eye of the Tiger’, which was playing rather loudly right now. But what if he liked it? She glanced at him again. He seemed thoughtful, bookish and unpretentious – the kind of man who’d prefer to eat in a casual Italian place than a poncy establishment.

Hannah chewed her lip and tried out possible conversation openers. Hi. Rotten night out there. To which he’d reply, ‘Yes.’ And then there’d be a horrible silence. I hate this record, don’t you? she’d add with a strained laugh. And he’d say, ‘Do you?’ Because by this time, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ would have stopped, and it’d be something like Marvin Gaye singing ‘What’s Going On?’, and she’d have to bluster that it was the last one she hated. ‘What was the last one?’ he’d ask, backing away from her and looking for the quickest exit route.

What on earth was wrong with her? She was single. She was thirty-three years old. Why couldn’t she act like a normal woman? It wasn’t that she lacked confidence. At work, she’d been recently promoted and was often expected to present to terrifying panels of suits. Whiteboards, PowerPoint, coming up with concepts for new ranges: she was fine with all of that. Yet she couldn’t figure out how to talk to a handsome man in a bar, even though he’d glanced at her on several occasions and, crucially, wasn’t giving the impression that he thought she was completely hideous.

Then he turned to her and said, ‘Hi.’

God, his smile was nice – sweet, warm and genuine.

‘Hi,’ Hannah said.

‘Horrible night out there.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Small pause. Hannah took a gulp of her drink.

‘Waiting for someone?’ the man asked.

‘Um, I was, but she’s just called to say she can’t make it.’ Hannah smiled broadly. ‘So I guess I’ll just finish this drink and go home.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t look like the person I’m meeting is going to show up either.’

‘Really? Who’s that?’

He grinned and paused, as if wondering how much information to divulge. ‘Er … I don’t really know,’ he said, blushing slightly. ‘I mean, I’ve never met her. We’ve just emailed a couple of times.’

‘Blind date?’

The man nodded, raising his eyebrows ominously. ‘Guardian Soulmates. I know it sounds a bit …’

‘No, not at all, it sounds fine…’ It really did. It meant he was single, read the Guardian, and was looking to meet someone. Which immediately made him a more attractive prospect than someone who showed up at 3 am, awash with tears and snot, and peed on her favourite T-shirt.

‘I’m not even sure it’s the best way to go about things,’ he added. ‘In fact, Guardian Soul-destroyers would be more apt.’ He laughed and pushed back his light brown hair self-consciously.

‘Had a few bad experiences then?’ Hannah asked with a smile.

He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say it’s been a bit of a non-event so far. Anyway, I’m Ryan …’

‘Hannah …’ And that was that. They talked, not about whatever godawful song was on the jukebox, but about their lives. By 10.30, in a cosy Italian restaurant, Hannah found herself telling Ryan about the T-shirt drawer incident while he confessed to hiding his eight-year-old daughter’s favourite story book after he calculated that he must have read it 150 times. Hannah learnt that, while Ryan’s job as an advertising copywriter sounded glamorous, his latest campaigns had been for mould-repelling tile grout and a toilet deodorisering brick that came in six different scents inspired by the wild herbs of the Corsican Maquis. ‘Seriously?’ She exploded with laughter.

‘Unfortunately, yes – we’re talking thyme, lavender, sage … the range is called “The Scented Isle”.’

‘So you can have your own Scented Isle in your toilet? I never knew that.’

‘Er, yes, if you really want one. They’re only a couple of quid …’

‘Cheaper than a package holiday,’ she suggested, noticing how Ryan’s eyes crinkled when he laughed.

‘You know,’ he added, ‘we might use that line.’

Thank God your date didn’t turn up, Hannah thought a little while later as they stepped out into the wet night and hailed a cab together. She didn’t know Ryan – not really. But she knew about his ex-wife and children and more about toilet brick fragrances than she’d ever thought possible. As he dropped her off at her flat, after they’d swapped numbers and he’d kissed her briefly but incredibly sweetly on the lips, she’d decided that she wouldn’t bother to pretend she was too busy to see him for at least a week. She’d be calling him the very next day, to hell with it.

What Hannah hadn’t realised then was how swiftly and deeply she’d fall in love, and that eighteen months after meeting, Ryan would ask her to move into the house he shared with his children at London Fields, and marry him, and that she’d want to very much.

And now, as she chains up her bike in the small courtyard at Catfish, Hannah feels a sharp twinge of guilt. All the stuff about church weddings and veils and their beautiful mother – of course, none of it is their fault. They’re just kids, she reminds herself. Even Josh still needs constant reminders from Ryan to clean his teeth and not wear the same boxers three days running.

No, it’s up to her to make things work. And she will, Hannah decides, greeting Adele at reception and entering the light, airy space of the design studio. She’ll start with Daisy, because surely it’s easier to befriend a ten-year-old girl than a boy of fourteen. She’ll suggest something simple, like a shopping trip. As Hannah says hi to her colleagues, and pours herself a strong black coffee, she feels a surge of optimism. She and Daisy will have a whole day together – a girlie day – to try on clothes and stop off at cafés where they’ll giggle and chat. It’s a great idea, she realises now. Why didn’t she think of it before?

NINE

At Let’s Bounce, ‘York’s Premier Soft Play Experience’, Lou plucks a small object from the ballpool and holds it gingerly between her forefinger and thumb. It’s dark brown and sticky and it occurs to her that, just a few months ago, she’d have retched if she’d had to pick up such a thing with her bare hands. Now, though, it seems like a normal part of her day.

Lou works six shifts a week at Let’s Bounce. Although she was grateful for the job when three shops which stocked her jewellery closed down, she vows that, if she ever has children – and with Spike, it seems increasingly unlikely – she’ll insist that they play on grass and in rivers and never in putrid places like this. Lou knows that parents need somewhere to take their children, especially on rainy days, but she never thinks the adults look happy or even faintly relieved to be here. They slump over plastic plates of chips and baked potatoes and horrible yellowy stuff called coronation chicken, whatever the heck that is, looking as if their lives are teetering on the brink of collapse.

Wrapping the brown squidgy thing in a paper napkin, Lou carries it to the ladies’ loo. While the main play zone is dimly lit – to conceal the decaying food lurking amongst the equipment, Lou suspects – the fluorescent strip in the ladies’ is so unforgiving, she’ll be able to get a proper look at the thing. If it’s poo, or something equally gross, she plans to present it to Dave, her boss, which will hopefully make him do something about the state of the place.

Lou places the paper parcel on the Formica top beside the washbasins and peels it open.

‘Ew, what’s that?’ Steph, Lou’s friend and fellow staff member, has emerged from a cubicle and is eyeing the parcel from a safe distance.

‘Don’t know,’ Lou replies, ‘but I think it might be a squashed muffin. It smells kind of sweet …’

Realising what she’s doing – ie, trying to analyse the lump – Lou quickly re-wraps it and flings it into the plastic bin.

‘I bloody hate this place, Lou,’ Steph mutters, washing her hands and picking a clump of mascara from an eyelash.

‘Me too.’ Lou checks her watch. ‘C’mon, if you hoover and I clear the tables, maybe we’ll get out on time for once.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Steph grins.

Lou smiles back. Thank God for Steph and the rest of the staff here, united in nugget-frying hell. ‘Fancy a quick drink when we’re done?’ she asks.

‘Could murder one,’ Steph replies. She stands back from the mirror, smoothes her hands over her rounded hips and inhales deeply as if summoning the strength to face the mayhem outside.

And it is mayhem. By midday, the blue sky had turned a moody grey, and the onset of rain always brings in the hordes. In her first week here, Lou discovered that things don’t gently wind down towards the end of the day as they do in normal workplaces. No, they wind up. By 5.30 pm the kids are usually so overwrought and exhausted that at least two-thirds are crying, lashing out at their parents and refusing to leave. Plus by that time, their stomachs are swishing with cheap blackcurrant squash and churning with horrible deep-fried nuggets. So they feel sick as well. Some children actually are sick. Compared to mopping up puke, Lou thinks wryly, retrieving a squashed muffin from the ballpool is almost a perk of the job.

‘I don’t wanna go home!’ a little girl wails in the play zone. ‘Wanna climb on the big rope again!’ The mother throws Lou an apologetic look. Lou smiles back. Although the woman looks young – late-twenties perhaps – her shoulder-length bob bears a thick swathe of wiry grey at the front. Perhaps motherhood has done that to her, or she’s just had to endure one too many bleak afternoons at Let’s Bounce. Will that happen to Lou if she works here much longer? She noticed a solitary grey hair nestling among her auburn curls this morning – at thirty-five – a defiant, silvery wire which she yanked out in disgust.

The girl is now darting between the scuffed, primary-coloured tables. ‘Come on, Bethany,’ the woman cajoles, holding out her hand ineffectually.

‘No! I hate you!’

‘They’re closing in a minute,’ the mother adds. ‘Look – all the other boys and girls have gone home. This lady’ – she indicates Lou, who wonders at what point she became a lady – ‘wants to go home and if you don’t come right now, you’ll be locked in all night.’

‘Good!’ the girl thunders. ‘It’d be fun.’

‘Your mum’s right,’ Lou says lightly, dragging the vacuum cleaner with its ‘amusing’ cartoon eyes towards them. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’ve got to hoover up first.’

‘Right. Sorry,’ the woman says, stepping away from a scattering of nuggets on the carpet. Lou switches on the hoover while Steph loads a tray with dirty plates.

The child is now refusing to put on her shoes. ‘Want to help me hoover?’ Lou asks.

The girl eyes her warily. ‘Okay.’ Lou hands the tube to her, quickly glancing around to check that Dave isn’t lurking around. He’d snap that she was contravening health and safety regulations (although discarded food and nappies in the ballpool area don’t seem to bother him one bit).

The girl is hoovering with reasonable efficiency and her mother looks relieved. ‘You’ve done a great job there,’ Lou praises the child.

‘Thanks.’ She grins proudly.

‘You know what?’ the mother adds, clearly grateful for Lou’s intervention, ‘you’re a natural to work somewhere like this.’

Lou smiles and thanks her, but by the time the mother and daughter have left the building, she’s thinking that being a natural at scraping up chips off the carpet was never supposed to be part of the plan.

‘Still fancy that drink?’ Steph asks as they leave, tearing off their tabards and stuffing them into their bags.

Lou thinks about Spike lying around at home, perhaps strumming a guitar but more likely depositing yet more used teabags into the sink. ‘God, yes,’ she declares. ‘Let’s go.’

TEN

‘Result,’ Spike says, placing his mobile back on the bedside table.

‘What’s that?’ Astrid asks.

‘Lou’s in the pub, having a drink with her friend from work. Reckon she’ll be a couple of hours at least …’

Astrid laughs and shakes her head in mock despair. ‘You’re terrible, giving her all that crap about rehearsing at Charlie’s. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, Spike.’

‘Well, I could be rehearsing,’ Spike murmurs. ‘In fact, we could practise a few things right now.’ With a broad smile, he swivels back into Astrid’s rumpled bed, pulling her towards him. She’s so beautiful, he thinks, like one of those gamine actresses from the sixties. All smooth, golden skin and perky breasts and that curtain of long, straight hair with a fringe hanging over her clear blue eyes.

Astrid, who is entirely naked, coils around Spike like a cat and plants a kiss on his fevered brow. He’s not ill, yet that’s how he feels when he’s with her: hot and feverish, as if the inner workings of his body which control mood and temperature go haywire the minute he arrives at her small terraced house.

‘You okay, baby?’ she asks in that vaguely posh voice with husky undertones, which always sends tiny sparks zapping up his spinal cord.

‘Better than okay,’ he replies with a smile. ‘Absolutely fantastic.’

She chuckles throatily, swinging her legs out of bed and stretching up to her full six feet before sashaying towards the open bedroom door. Spike stares at her bum, deciding it’s so perfectly formed, it looks airbrushed. ‘Want a cup of tea?’ She glances back with a teasing smile.

Tea? How can he think about tea when he’s just copped a long, languorous look at her backside? Yet that’s what Spike loves about Astrid Stone. Her casual air, the way nothing seems to ruffle her. The way she can enjoy a full four hours in the sack, then swing out of bed and suggest a hot milky drink, as if prolonged afternoon sex is a completely normal and expected part of a drizzly Monday afternoon.

‘Tea would be great,’ Spike replies, although it’s the last thing he fancies right now. He wants Astrid back in bed with him instead of wasting valuable time waiting for the kettle to boil and, if any beverages are to be consumed, he’d prefer a nice cold beer.

He can hear her now, padding lightly downstairs and pottering about in the kitchen. As she hums a lilting, unrecognisable tune, he sinks back into her plump white pillows and congratulates himself on his stupendous luck.

He really is a fortunate bastard. Astrid made all the moves, from the moment they met at the Red Lion, six months ago now, one wet October night. She’d come along with Charlie, a friend of Spike’s with whom he has vague intentions of starting a band. It had felt like an ordinary night until Astrid strode in – a blonde, blue-eyed goddess.

‘Spike,’ Charlie said grandly, ‘meet my dear friend Astrid.’

Astrid beamed at him. ‘Uh, hello,’ Spike croaked, taking in the cute peasant top and slender hips and legs that went on for about seventy miles in dark skinny jeans. Her ankle boots were scuffed, and she wasn’t wearing make-up which, to Spike, suggested a self-assuredness he found incredibly loin-stirring. ‘Hi, Spike,’ Astrid said breezily, kissing his cheek and nearly sending him staggering back into a table laden with drinks.

When Spike tries to replay that night, he can’t remember all of it. If someone were to ask, ‘What did you and Astrid talk about? What did she drink?’ he wouldn’t be able to answer. All he remembers is Charlie melting into the crowd, and some godawful Dire Straits tribute band playing on a tiny stage, and he and Astrid escaping to flirt in a dark corner until last drinks were called and they ventured out into the night.

Somehow, they found themselves falling into a damp alley where they kissed against a wet wheelie bin. Spike found his hands accidentally falling into Astrid’s top, getting pulled up there by some kind of strange magnetic force, at which point he realised she wasn’t wearing a bra. She laughed and disentangled herself, and they swapped numbers before going their separate ways. Spike watched her swish off down the street (she wasn’t wearing a jacket – Astrid seemed impervious to the cold) and realised that something incredible had just happened to him.

Spike had just met a woman who knew how to live.

‘Here you go, baby.’ Astrid has reappeared at her bedroom doorway with two mugs of tea.

‘Thanks, honey.’ She’s no longer naked, disappointingly, but at least she’s only wearing a short, silky slip thing. It’s nothing like the floor-length pink dressing gown that Lou bundles herself up in, constructed from two-inch-thick fabric with all the sexual allure of a gigantic marshmallow. No, the thing Astrid is wearing definitely isn’t a dressing gown. It’s, um … Spike sips his tea and tries to think of the word. ‘What’s that called?’ he asks.

She glances down and frowns quizzically. ‘What’s what called?’

‘That … that thing you’re wearing.’

‘What, my chemise?’

Ah, chemise. He might have known it’d have a sexy French name, like something you could happily drown in. ‘Yeah,’ he says, pushing dishevelled dark hair out of his eyes. ‘I knew it was something like that.’

‘You’re funny,’ she says, ‘but listen, much as I’d like to discuss my chemise at great length, I need to get moving so you’ll have to get out of here I’m afraid.’

‘What?’ Spike groans. ‘Already?’

Disappointment wells in his stomach. He’d envisaged another couple of hours here at least; it’s only half-six, and he’s already constructed the Charlie alibi. He’d even planned to call Lou a little later to say the rehearsal was going so well, they’d be carrying on late and she needn’t wait up for him.

‘I’m booked to do a voiceover at half-seven,’ Astrid adds briskly, ‘and I still need to get showered and sorted.’

‘What, in the evening? Who works at that time?’ Spike tries to erase the hint of possessiveness in his voice.

‘Loads of people do,’ she laughs, ‘especially at radio stations. It’s for some programme trailers and I need to do it with the guy who does the evening show.’

Despite his irritation, Astrid’s job as a voiceover artist actually increases her attractiveness. Spike can imagine happily buying incontinence pads if it were her voice purring away in the ad.

She marches over, grabs the duvet and pulls it away with a laugh, exposing Spike’s naked form. ‘Hey!’ he cries in protest.

‘Oh, don’t be shy, baby.’ Then, just as things are looking hopeful again, she fixes him with a steady gaze. ‘So, does Lou have any idea about us, d’you reckon?’

‘Um, no, I don’t think so …’

She tuts loudly. ‘Ah, so you keep telling me it’s all over between you two, that you’re just flatmates really, blah-di-blah, yet you still act as if you’re terrified about her finding out.’

‘I’d just rather pick the right time,’ he says, feeling hurt.

‘Oh, I’m not saying you should tell her,’ Astrid adds brusquely. ‘That’s up to you. It’s your life, Spike, but I hope you’re not kidding me, yourself or Lou by pretending your relationship’s dead in the water when your girlfriend obviously doesn’t think it is.’

‘Actually,’ Spike mumbles, ‘I probably will say something soon. Maybe it’s for the best …’

‘She might be pleased,’ Astrid says with a shrug. ‘Maybe she’s been trying to pluck up the courage to tell you.’

‘To tell me what?’ he asks, aghast.

‘That she wants to break up. Face it, Spike – the only reason why you’re round here four times a week is because you’re both in such a rut, which is hardly surprising, is it, after how many years together?’

‘Um, about thirteen,’ Spike says dully.

‘Hey.’ Astrid’s face softens. ‘I’m just being realistic, honey. I mean, you were both so young – well, she was young when you first got together …’

Spike nods, marvelling at how Astrid manages to drop in casual references to his age. She, like Lou, is younger than him; in fact at twenty-nine, she’s even younger than Lou. Is it his fault, though, if he attracts younger girls? What’s he supposed to do – go out hunting for forty-eight-year-old women?

Spike clambers out of Astrid’s bed, gathers up the clothes he threw off in haste and reluctantly puts them on.

‘You make me sound like a real shit,’ he huffs.

‘I didn’t mean that, babe. You’re not shitty to me. You’re quite lovely, in fact. Apart from that time when you didn’t tell me Lou was going to show up at that gig …’

‘What, the Christmas one? I had no idea! She said she was going to her work party.’

‘Yeah,’ Astrid says sternly, ‘and she snuck off early so she could see you play, devoted girlfriend that she is.’

Spike’s face droops. ‘Yeah. Well, I’m sorry. That must’ve been uncomfortable for you.’

Astrid smiles, takes hold of his shoulders and kisses him firmly on the mouth. ‘I’ve had better nights, but never mind. Now move it, you. I need to get ready.’

‘Okay, okay…’ He follows her downstairs to the front door which she opens with a flourish, mouthing bye-bye, apparently not caring that anyone could walk by and see her clad only in a chemise.

‘Bye,’ he says, stepping out onto her path. He knows he’s sulking, and he turns to give her a big smile, but Astrid has already shut her front door.

Spike doesn’t feel guilty, he decides as he leaves her street of tidy redbrick terraces. It’s not thirteen years he and Lou have been together, he realises now, but sixteen. God, that makes him feel old. Spike is two years off fifty, a fact he rarely dwells on, but which now causes a flutter of panic in his chest.

He met Lou at the end of her foundation year at art school: a beautiful, fresh-faced doll of a girl who’d gone on to study jewellery, scooping prizes galore, while he’d scraped a living with the odd short-lived job – van driver, kitchen porter, postman – whilst trying to revive his music career. At twenty-one, Spike had had a hit with a plaintive, acoustic love song based on the Black Beauty TV theme tune, imaginatively entitled ‘My Beauty’ which had, for one summer, been the slow-dance song of choice. He’d moved from Glasgow to London, hoping to follow it up with another release to showcase his talents, but his second single had flopped, as had his third, and then his record label had dropped him and the horse telly thing had become a bit of a joke. There’d been a brief frisson of hope three years later, when his manager had called him, suggesting continuing the horse theme with ‘an ironic, tongue-in-cheek version of Follyfoot or maybe even White Horses, you remember that one …’

‘I don’t want to be seventies-horse-telly-man,’ Spike had snapped. Broke and desolate, he’d drifted back to Glasgow and into the arms of a cute art student called Lou. Is he passionate about her, after all this time? Not really, he reflects, striding past Sound Shack, his favourite music shop in York and giving Rick, the owner, a nod through the window before marching purposely home. Oh, she’s pretty all right. She’s barely aged at all, with that cheeky little face and smattering of freckles that he finds so sweet and endearing. Yet spending sixteen years with the same woman, no matter how lovely, is hardly sexy and dynamic, is it?

Spike doesn’t know any couple, apart from his own mum and dad (who are old and therefore don’t count) who’ve been together that long. Surely it’s not natural to meet one person and stick with them forever, all through your young years when you’re meant to be wild and crazy and shagging like mad. And he’s not old. Forties are the new thirties these days, and he still feels young, which is what matters. Spike can proudly say he’s never set foot in a Homebase. So here he is, a youngish virile man, and if Lou can’t appreciate him and insists on wearing that marshmallow dressing gown instead of a chemise, then who can blame him for having a little dalliance now and again?