Her finger slipped - the World changed

Her finger slipped – the World changed.

Darcie looked at the screen and saw, to her horror, that it was saying that she was at 15 Loader Road now. This could not be happening. It must not be happening, no one must have any idea that she had visited 15 Loader Road.

Too late she looked at the post appearing on her Facebook page with its innocuous message to friends – but showing it was sent from Callum’s house! Somehow she had hit the location button for where she was yesterday.  Many of her friends would know the address and wonder what she was doing there.   Her husband would do more than wonder!

Panic, that had started in her head, was spreading through her lungs making it difficult to breathe, through her fingers which refused to respond to the command to delete the post, to her legs that refused her any movement. The more she remained immobile the longer the post was available for all to see.

A ‘Like’ and a message, ‘Hi Dee, is it your day off? I thought it was yesterday, is Cal OK?  He seemed a bit down when I saw him last week, talking about going back to Canada.

‘Oh shit!’

It was already too late to delete, that would make it worse, there would be questions about why she tried to get rid of it. She grabbed the “Pay As You Go” mobile from the discrete pocket in her jacket, it only had one number in the contacts. There was no reply.  She redialled and let it ring three times before cancelling.  After about thirty seconds her phone rang.

‘Yes?’

‘Sorry Cal, I’ve made a mistake which means we have to bring forward our plans to leave. We have to go today, I’ll organise the flights, get to Heathrow ASAP.  I’ll contact you there. Understand?’

‘OK, on my way.’

Darcie looked round. She would be sad to leave, she was fond of her husband, it wasn’t his fault. She’d made sure there weren’t any children, once she’d met Cal she knew that leaving was inevitable, she couldn’t trust herself to leave kids as well.

She would leave a note for her husband explaining that she was travelling to see a sick friend in Yorkshire so might be out of touch for a while on the train.  That would give them a few more hours before anyone started asking questions.

Packing was easy, just a cabin bag with a few underclothes and a lot of make up. She had agonised about her ring, couldn’t leave it where he might find it, but he deserved to know it was all over.  She had bought a small padded envelope especially for this eventuality, already addressed and second class stamped, she would drop it in the box at the end of the road.

She left the car keys where he would expect them to be and dropped the house keys in a thick hedge a few streets away, walking to the underground station rather than taking a traceable taxi.

By the time they met at the boarding gate neither was recognisable from the life they had led for so many years. They didn’t acknowledge one another or sit together. Their phone SIM’s had been broken and discarded in separate bins to the phones. Their passports had different names, their flight destination was Venice, their ultimate destination was Moscow.