Marion Lennox - Abby and the Bachelor Cop

Philip was coming by to meet her. She had to tell him.

Her mother’s words… It’s where you belong.

Where did she belong?

She didn’t know.

‘What do you mean you don’t want to get married?’

To say Philip was gobsmacked would be an understatement. He was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

Maybe she had.

‘I can’t,’ she muttered, miserable. She’d tried to get him to go for a walk with her, to get away from the people in the bar. He wouldn’t. They were out on the terrace but they were still in full view.

Philip was tired from sailing. He didn’t want a walk. He wanted to go home, have a shower, take a nap, then take his fiancée out to Banksia Bay’s newest restaurant. That was what he’d planned.

He hadn’t planned on Abby being difficult.

He hadn’t planned on a broken engagement.

‘It’s just… Kleppy,’ she said in a small voice and Philip stared at her as if she were demented.

‘The dog.’

‘He’s made me…’

‘What?’

What, indeed? She hardly understood it herself. How one dog could wake her from a ten-year fog. ‘You don’t like him,’ she said.

‘Of course I don’t like him,’ Philip snapped. ‘He’s a mutt. But I’m prepared to put up with him.’

‘I don’t want you to put up with him.’ She took a deep breath. Tried to say what she scarcely understood herself. The thing in the middle of the fog. ‘I don’t want you to put up with me.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘You don’t like me, Philip.’

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. ‘Of course I like you. I love you. Haven’t I shown you that, over and over? This is craziness. Pre-wedding nerves. To say…’

‘You don’t like this dress, do you?’

He stared down at the Elvises and he couldn’t quite repress a wince. ‘No, but…’

‘And you painted your living room…our living room when I move in…beige. I don’t like beige.’

‘Then we’ll paint it something else. I can cope.’

‘See, that’s exactly what I mean. You’ll put up with something else. Like you put up with me.’

‘This is nonsense.’

They were sitting at the table right on the edge of the terrace, with a view running all the way down the valley to the coast below. It was the most beautiful view in the world. If anyone looked out from the bar right now they’d see a man and a woman having a tête à tête, she flashing a diamond almost as wide as her finger, he taking her hand in his. Visibly calming down.

‘Mum said this was bound to happen,’ Philip said. ‘She felt like this when she married my father. A week before the wedding. Pre-wedding jitters.’

Philip’s mother. A mouse, totally dominated by Philip’s father-and by Philip himself.

She’d seen Philip’s mother looking at her dress today. Not brave enough to say she liked it. But just…looking.

‘I don’t want to be beige,’ she whispered.

‘You won’t be beige. You’ll be very happy. There’s nothing you want that I can’t give you.’

‘I want you to like my dog.’ She felt as if she was backed into a corner, trying to find reasons for the unreasonable. Trying to explain the unexplainable.

‘I’ll try and like your dog.’

‘But why?’ she said. ‘There are women out there who like beige. There are women out there who don’t like mutts. Why do you want to marry me?’

‘I was always going to marry you.’

‘That’s just it,’ she said and it was practically a wail. ‘We’ve just drifted into this.’

‘We did not drift. I made a decision ten years ago…’

‘You wanted to marry me ten years ago?’

‘Of course I did.’ He sighed, exasperated. ‘It’s okay. I understand. One week of pre-wedding nerves isn’t going to mess with ten years of plans.’

‘Philip, I don’t want to,’ she said and, before she could think about being sensible, she hauled the diamond from her finger and laid it on the table in front of him. ‘I can’t. I know…I know it’s sensible to marry you. You’re a good man. I know you’ve been unfailingly good to me. I know you’ll even put up with my dog and paint your living room sunbeam-yellow if I really want. But, you know what? I want someone who likes sunbeam-yellow.’

‘What the…? Is there someone else?’

Someone else. At the thought of who that someone else was…at the sheer impossibility of saying his name, voicing the thought, her courage failed her. Her courage to say Raff.

But not her courage to do what she must, right now.

‘I can’t,’ she said quietly. ‘No matter what. This isn’t about someone else, Philip. It’s about what I’m feeling. Finding Kleppy… Yeah, it’s crazy, but he makes me laugh. He’s a little bit nuts and I love it. I wish you loved it. You don’t, and it’s made me see that I don’t want to be Mrs Philip Dexter. You’ve been wonderful to me, Philip. You deserve a woman who thinks you’re wonderful in return. You deserve a woman who’ll love the life you want to live instead of putting up with it, and you deserve a woman who you’ll think is wonderful instead of putting up with her.’

‘Abby…’ He was truly shocked now, ashen, and she felt dreadful. Appalling.

She had to do this.

She pushed the diamond closer to him, so close it nearly fell off the edge of the table.

Philip was a sensible man. This diamond was worth a fortune. He didn’t let it fall. He took it, looked down at it for a long moment and then carefully zipped it into the pocket of his sailing anorak.

He rose.

‘I’m damp in these clothes,’ he said, pale and angry. ‘I need to get changed. And you… You need to think about what you’re throwing away. You’re being foolish beyond belief. Insulting, even. I know it’s pre-wedding nerves and I’ll make allowances. Think about it overnight. I’ll come and see you in the morning when you’ve had time to reconsider.’

‘I won’t reconsider.’

‘You have twenty-four hours to see sense,’ he snapped. ‘After all I’ve done for you… I can’t believe you’d be so ungrateful. To walk away from me… Of all the crazy… Why don’t you just get on a slow boat to China and be done with it?’

A slow boat to China? Right now, the concept had enormous merit, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

She couldn’t move. She sat and stared sightlessly over the golf course and she thought…nothing.

Someone came and cleared her glass. Asked if she’d like another drink. Asked if she and Philip were going to China for their honeymoon.

Finally let her be.

They’d be muttering in the bar. Wondering what she was doing, just sitting.

Expecting Philip to come back?

Maybe they’d seen his anger, his tight lips, his rigid stance as he’d stalked to his car.

Maybe the town already knew.

She wouldn’t tell anyone. She couldn’t. Philip had given her twenty-four hours to come to her senses. She owed it to him to wait, to make him see it was a measured, sensible decision.

Is there someone else?

She thought of Philip’s demand. Was there?

Raff had kissed her. Twice. He’d made her feel…

She couldn’t afford to acknowledge how he made her feel.

‘Klep!’ The call jolted her out of her misery, an unfamiliar voice filled with joy. It was one of the golf course groundsmen, striding up from the first tee. She looked closer and recognised him.

Lionel. Isaac’s gardener. A big, burly man in his mid-thirties. Slow and sleepy and quiet.

He reached her and knelt on the terrace and Kleppy was licking his face with joy. ‘Klep!’

‘Lionel,’ she said, hauling herself out of her introspection. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Working,’ he said, briefly extricating himself from Kleppy’s licking. ‘Gotta job mowing. Not as good as Mr Abrahams’. S’okay.’

‘You and Kleppy are friends?’

‘Yeah.’

Oh, help. She looked at the two of them and thought…and thought…

Thought they were greeting each other with a joy born of love.

‘Did you want him?’ It nearly killed her to say it. To lose Kleppy and Philip in the one afternoon…

She knew what would hurt most.

But… ‘Can’t,’ Lionel said briefly. ‘I live in a rooming house now. I had to sell the house when Baxter pinched Mum’s money. Lost the house, then lost me job when Mr Abrahams died. Someone said the Finns had Klep. Went up there to see and Sarah said he were yours. Sarah said he were happy. You’re looking after ’im?’

‘I…yes.’

‘He’s a great dog, Klep,’ Lionel said. ‘Makes a man happy.’

‘I… He’ll make me happy.’

‘Goodo,’ Lionel said. ‘That man… Dexter… They said you’re getting married.’

‘I…’

‘He’s the lawyer.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes.’

‘He don’t like dogs,’ Lionel said. ‘He come up to Mr Abrahams’ when he made a will. Kleppy jumped up and it were like he was touching dirt. You and he…’ He stopped, the question unasked. You and he…

‘We’ll sort it out,’ Abby said. ‘I love Kleppy enough for both of us.’

‘That’s good,’ Lionel said. ‘You’ve made me feel better. And you’re a lucky woman. Kleppy’s the best mate you could have.’ He gave Kleppy a farewell hug and went back to mowing.

Abby kept on staring at nothing.

Like he was touching dirt…

She’d done the right thing. She didn’t need twenty-four hours. She was a lucky woman?

Maybe she was. She had Kleppy and she was…free?

ABBY told no one but it was all over town by morning.

Abigail Callahan and Philip Dexter had had a row. She’d flung his ring back in his face. He’d accused her of having an affair. She’d accused him of having an affair. The wedding would cost squillions to cancel. Abby was threatening to go to China.

Abby was threatening to take the dog to China.

Why, oh, why, did she live in a small town?

The phone rang at seven-thirty and it was her mother. Hysterical.