Two Metres From You

by Heidi Stephens

Genres: Friendship; Humor & Satire; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Love might be closer than you think . . .

Gemma isn't sure what upsets her more. The fact she just caught her boyfriend cheating, or that he did it on her brand-new Heal's cushions.

All she knows is she needs to put as many miles between her and Fraser as humanly possible. So, when her best friend suggests a restorative few days in the West Country, it seems like the perfect solution.

That is, until the country enters a national lockdown that leaves her stranded. All she has for company is her dog, Mabel. And the mysterious (and handsome!) stranger living at the bottom of her garden . . .

Packed full of laugh-out-loud moments, this hugely uplifting, feel-good and sparkling romantic comedy is simply unputdownable. Perfect for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Sophie Kinsella, Beth O'Leary and Laura Jane Williams.

(P)2021 Headline Publishing Group Limited

Release date: March 25, 2021

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

Gemma had been waiting on the station concourse for over half an hour when the robotic female voice announced that her train was now boarding at Platform 3. She was cold and stiff from sitting on her rucksack, her toes numb inside the flimsy trainers that were designed for treadmills and gym mats and polished studio floors, not draughty London train stations. She pulled her coat tightly around her and wrapped her arms around Mabel, lifting up one of her front legs and burying her nose into the leathery pads of her paw. They smelled inexplicably of earth and digestive biscuits, which Gemma inhaled like it was the furry essence of courage and calm. Mabel licked her face, prompting a weak smile from Gemma, her first in hours. She kissed the top of her head, on the velvety patch right between her ears.

She’d been messaging Caro when the platform was called, letting her know she was OK from behind a curtain of untidy blond hair that hid her blotchy skin and red-rimmed eyes from curious passers-by. Right now she couldn’t remember a time in her adult life when she was more in need of a stiff drink, but she didn’t dare leave Mabel tied up outside any of the shops. Hopefully there would be a buffet car or a trolley on the train that would sell her wine, no doubt for a rip-off price. Since this was a state of emergency, she’d even consider cider.

She struggled to her feet, scratching the metal tip of her coat belt across the four inches of bare ankle below her gym leggings. The skin was already pink and itchy from the cold, and now it hurt in that special, particularly hurty way that only applies when your skin is semi-frozen. Aside from her shambolic appearance, it was reasonable to assume she smelled less than fragrant. Eau de Boot Camp et Misery. But there was little she could do about it right now and it wasn’t like Paddington was busy. It was a Sunday, and besides, people had been avoiding unnecessary travel for a week or two now. Last week the government had formally introduced a new rule that meant you couldn’t get closer than two metres anyway.

As if confirming Gemma’s suspicion about her current aroma, Mabel’s shiny black nose did a covert frisk of Gemma’s copious bags and pockets. No treats emerged, so she flumped back down by the pile of luggage and watched her owner wrestle her arms into the straps of the rucksack. Gemma tied Mabel’s lead to the waist strap, gripped her train ticket between her teeth and scooped up everything else with both hands: a mix of branded hessian shoppers, supermarket carrier bags and a huge leather handbag that was bursting at the seams with clothing and toiletries and the dangling plug of a BaByliss Big Hair. Everything about Gemma looked like it had been shovelled together against the clock, a chaotic jumble of woman and Labrador and miscellaneous belongings. She felt like a human version of the kids’ game Buckaroo, weighed down with humiliation and anger and grief. One more item of emotional baggage and she would flip.

At the ticket gate, Gemma gave the inspector a helpless look and he opened the wide gate so she didn’t have to put her bags down to feed the ticket in. Mabel trotted dutifully along the platform, perhaps sensing that now wasn’t the time to investigate discarded burger wrappings or strutting pigeons. At the first Standard Class carriage Gemma elbowed the button to open the door and climbed in, trailing Mabel behind her. She piled all the bags under the luggage shelf, then slid the rucksack from her throbbing shoulders and let it fall on to the rack above. Mabel sat and waited while her owner untied her lead, then jumped on to the seat by the window. Gemma rubbed the sore patches on her fingers where the bag straps had cut into them, then fell into the aisle seat and hugged Mabel’s head with a sigh of relief.

She thought about how she’d write up today as a first-person experience in a women’s magazine, the kind you read as a guilty pleasure at the hairdresser or the dentist. I went from loved-up in London to HOMELESS WRECK in ONE DAY. Or maybe I walked in on my man CHEATING, check out the INCREDIBLE PHOTOS. Gemma didn’t actually have any photos, incredible or otherwise, but the image was imprinted on her retinas for the rest of time.

The tinny voice of the train driver confirmed that Gemma was indeed on the 19.50 service to Bristol Temple Meads, calling at Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads. She was only going as far as Chippenham, which the Trainline app had told her was just over an hour. As the train began to pull out of the station, Gemma let out a slow and wavering breath. Despite everything, getting out of London felt like she’d loosened the tiny knots in her stomach; the more miles she put between herself and Fraser, the better.

‘Any drinks or refreshments?’

Gemma jolted from her nap, induced by the furry warmth of Mabel’s head on her lap and the soporific swaying of the train. She took a second to remember where she was, and felt a momentary wave of sickness.

‘Do you have any wine? Or cider?’

‘I’ve got both, my love. Wine is on special offer, two mini bottles for seven pounds. Red or white.’

Gemma mentally calculated how many she’d need to induce oblivion, but not death. ‘Can I have six red? And a bottle of water. Do you have a cup? And a Twix.’

The woman passed everything over with the patience and implacability of someone who had witnessed a whole world of tiny dramas in her time. Gemma hesitated for a second before handing over her debit card, then decided she might need the cash for a taxi. It wasn’t like she and Fraser had shared a bank account, so there was no way he could use her spending to track her down. Not that he’d bother, she thought; Fraser wasn’t known for exuberant romantic gestures unless there was a guaranteed blow job at the end of it, and the only thing that would persuade Gemma to be in the same postcode as his penis any time soon was the opportunity to kick it really hard.

She poked four of the wine bottles into her handbag, wiggling them into the crevices between her belongings, leaving the remaining two on the tray table with the water and the Twix. Mabel lifted her head hopefully at the rustle of the foil wrapper, but had to settle for lapping Buxton from a plastic cup and a freezer bag of dog biscuits that magically appeared from Gemma’s coat pocket. Gemma drank the rest of the water from the bottle, then unscrewed the first mini wine and poured it into the cup.

It struck her that this time last Sunday she’d been relaxed and replete after she and Fraser had finished their usual Sunday takeaway. They’d walked along Bermondsey Street to collect it together, following their traditional debate about whether to go with Gemma’s favourite Lebanese or Fraser’s preferred Thai. As usual Gemma had capitulated to keep the peace, even though all the dishes from the Thai place tasted the same and the personal hygiene of the owner made her question the state of the kitchen. While they waited, she had regaled Fraser with funny stories from her coffee date with Caro and Joe earlier, and he’d pretended to laugh despite clearly not actually listening. One week on, she was drinking wine out of a dog cup on a train and eating a Twix for dinner while strings of drool spiralled from Mabel’s jaws on to her leg. Stay classy, Gemma.

The Sunday coffee with Caro and Joe was a long-standing date; a tradition they’d tried to keep up since they’d all moved to London after university. Sometimes family commitments, holidays, weddings or illness meant it was only two of them, but in the eleven years since they’d graduated they’d never entirely cancelled more than a handful of times, aside from a three-month hiatus in 2014 when Joe was doing a summer DJ residency in Mykonos and Caro had just given birth to Gemma’s god-daughter, Bella.

They always met up at 4 p.m. in a favourite café called Dexter’s near Borough Market that served up good coffee and squashy sofas, conveniently only five minutes from Gemma’s 3 p.m. boot camp, which was run by an ex-Marine called Rob who had arms like Parma hams and a voice like a really angry Barry White. But today Gemma had seen several missed calls from Caro after her class ended; when she rang back, she discovered Caro was cancelling on the basis of a work crisis, and Joe was dying of man flu. He’d been DJ-ing on Saturday night and had probably still been dancing and/or snogging unsuitable men when the sun came up, so crying off at the last minute wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Gemma and Caro had chatted for a few minutes about their respective weeks, and after a little coaxing Gemma had mentioned how particularly moody and distant Fraser had been lately. Caro had sympathised, then suggested she surprise him by getting home early, maybe ‘spend some quality time together’ before taking him out for dinner. ‘You mean fuck him then feed him,’ laughed Gemma. In the absence of a date with her friends, it had seemed like as good a plan as any.

Twenty minutes later Gemma had arrived home to find Mabel shut in the kitchen and a prime view of Fraser’s head wedged between the spread legs of a mystery brunette, which made him look like he had a Tom Selleck moustache. Chaos and screaming ensued, with Mystery Brunette calling Gemma a ‘cunt’ on her way out, which felt a bit rich when she’d just been grinding hers into Gemma’s new Heal’s cushions.

The next hour had been a painful blur of shouting, recriminations and slamming doors as Gemma had gathered up as many of her belongings as possible. Most of it went into the hiking rucksack she’d last used for a trip she and Joe had taken around the Greek islands, and the rest was crammed into whatever random bags she could find. After the initial yelling had died down, Fraser had taken to brooding in doorways, watching her empty drawers and cupboards and occasionally proclaiming ‘this is fucking stupid’ or ‘babe, don’t do this.’ Gemma had ignored him, channelling her misery and fury into getting herself and Mabel out of the flat. Once she was packed, she had pointed a finger in Fraser’s face and delivered an emphatic ‘Do NOT follow me’ before dropping his keys on the mat and closing the front door behind her. She had hurried Mabel to the end of the road, then put the bags down on the pavement and crumpled against a lamppost to call Caro. It took all her remaining energy to whisper Please help me, I need to get out of London before the dam broke on tears she’d been suppressing for hours, swiftly followed by those she’d been holding back for days, weeks and months.

Caro had taken charge as usual, ordering Gemma to get an Uber to Paddington and messaging her the train time and the address of the cottage, then staying on the phone until the car arrived. And so here she was, thirty-two-year-old freelance journalist Gemma Lockwood, newly single and heading west to pastures new and unknown. I walked in on my man cheating and a few hours later I was drinking wine on a train with a dog. When everything felt less terrible, she could probably make £150 out of that.

The train eased into Chippenham just before 9 p.m., ejecting a handful of passengers on to the cold, empty platform. The wind flapped at Mabel’s ears as the carriages slid away to Bath and Bristol, leaving Gemma and Mabel to trudge up the steps in the direction of the station exit and taxi rank. If Gemma had been able to free her hands she would have crossed her fingers; this felt like the back end of beyond, and she had no idea if there would be cabs at this time on a Sunday.

The ticket gates were open and unmanned, spilling out on to a tarmac concourse with a drop-off area, bus stops and one solitary Peugeot in the taxi rank. The driver was leaning on the bonnet, smoking frantically in the frigid air, his free hand tucked under the armpit of his anorak for warmth. He was around sixty and looked a little like Gemma’s dead uncle Clive, but Gemma hurried towards him like he was a shimmering mirage in a Wiltshire desert that might fade away at any moment.

The man thumped his cigarette into the gutter and eyed Gemma and Mabel doubtfully. She arranged her face into her most winning smile, trying to look like a sane, professional woman of means rather than an unhinged bag lady with a dog that would almost certainly leave hair and a light film of slobber on his upholstery.

‘Can you take us to Crowthorpe?’

‘I don’t usually take dogs. Allergic.’ He managed to add at least four extra r’s to the final word, reminding Gemma of Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid in the Harry Potter films.

‘Please. You’re the only taxi, and I don’t know anyone locally. I can pay extra.’ Gemma tried to access her purse so she could wave banknotes at him, but it was buried somewhere in her handbag and she had less than no hands. She tried another winning smile, this time with teeth.

‘Hmm.’ He inspected them both for a long moment, then relented. ‘Go on then. Get in.’

The twenty-minute journey to Crowthorpe followed the main road out of town, past a tired-looking row of estate agents, takeaways and pubs. A few were open, and Gemma caught a glimpse of outdoor smokers and the flickering lights of fruit machines. The shops gave way to houses – neat rows of Victorian and Edwardian terraces that merged into post-war semis. It reminded her of the town where Aunt Laura had lived in Norfolk, but perhaps all market towns looked the same. After ten minutes and an unnecessary number of roundabouts, the taxi veered off the main road on to a country lane that became increasingly narrow and twisting, lined with shadowy hedgerows punctuated by gated entrances or single-track lanes.

The taxi smelled like a teenage bedroom, and this combined with the hurtling motion and Gemma’s wine/Twix dinner was making her stomach do some dangerous churning. She was about to ask the driver to stop so she could throw up into a hedgerow when they passed the sign saying ‘Welcome to Crowthorpe’ and the taxi slowed. ‘What’s the address, love?’

Gemma took deep breaths and scrolled through Caro’s messages. ‘It just says West Cottage, on the corner of Frampton Lane.’

The driver nodded and pulled away, much slower this time, and made his way through the village. Gemma closed her eyes and willed herself not to be sick, and by the time the taxi stopped she was feeling a little less like that time she’d eaten a whole bag of candyfloss at the fairground, then parted company with it on the Waltzer in a centrifugal symphony of pink vomit. Gemma opened the car door, gulping cold air as she pulled Mabel and her handbag out of the taxi. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Twelve pounds,’ said the driver, opening the boot and unloading the rest of her bags on to the pavement. He looked at her with an expression of mild concern. ‘Are you going to be OK?’

Gemma squeezed out a wobbly smile, pulling Mabel closer to her side. Right now she felt a very long way from OK. ‘I’ll be fine, thanks.’ She sank her arm into her handbag and fished around until she felt the soft leather of her purse and pulled it out, extracting a £20 note. ‘Keep the change. Thanks for helping me out.’

The driver grinned and walked back to his car. ‘No worries. It’s a nice village, this. You’ll be right.’

Right about what?

Gemma watched him drive away, then turned to unlatch the wooden gate of the cottage. She remembered Caro’s instruction to look for the cast-iron chicken by the door, but there were no street lights in this part of the village and no moonlight anywhere, so Gemma clicked on the torch app on her phone and waved it over the tiny front garden. She spotted the bright red chicken and lifted it up; it was heavier than she expected, but the ring with two door keys was underneath, pressed slightly into the ground by weight and time. Gemma hooked her finger under the keys and levered them out, then jiggled the old mortice key into the lock of the porch. It swung open into a small coat and boot space with a stone-tiled floor, so Gemma transferred all her bags from the pavement before closing the gate and tackling the inner door, which opened with a silver Yale key. Inside was pitch-dark and smelled inexplicably of cheese, but flicking the light switch on the wall yielded nothing.

Gemma looked at Mabel, suddenly overcome with physical fatigue and mental exhaustion. She vaguely remembered Caro messaging something about the fuse box, but she felt too tired and muddled to work it out now. The only thing that really mattered at this moment was making sure her dog was OK; everything else could wait until morning.

The village was silent as Gemma stepped back out into the tiny front garden and let go of Mabel’s lead. While she sniffed around the shrubs and did her business, Gemma used her phone torch to empty the contents of the rucksack in search of Mabel’s dog bed, bundling it into the house with the wool picnic blanket Fraser had bought her for Valentine’s Day and the four remaining mini bottles of wine. Once Mabel had finished, Gemma scanned her torch over the shadowy rooms. One had two sofas, so Gemma kicked off her trainers, put the dog bed next to the fireplace and told Mabel to settle. As her dog turned in circles in pursuit of the perfect sleeping position, Gemma padded through to the kitchen in her purple gym socks and found a bowl in a cupboard by torchlight, filling it with water from the tap; she put it next to Mabel’s bed, then returned to the kitchen for a wine glass. Her final mission was to shine her torch up the creaky stairs in search of a bathroom; when she came back downstairs, Mabel’s head was on her paws and her big Labrador eyes were already closing.

Gemma shuffled under the soft blanket, a gift that had been full of possibilities, a promise of picnics and live music and lazy summer evenings under the stars. Since that had turned out to be colossal bullshit, she would now use it to wallow in wine and self-pity in a dark room. She unscrewed all four wine bottles and lined them up on the wooden floorboards by the sofa, tipping each into the glass and transferring it immediately into her mouth. Gemma felt the pain in her shoulders and hands and heart soften and blur at the edges, and closed her eyes to wait for the benevolent mercy of sleep.

Sometime after midnight, Gemma lay on her side on the sofa, her head pickled with wine but refusing to yield to slumber. Her eyes had adjusted to the intense darkness, and she was able to pick out the doughnut shape of Mabel curled up on her bed, and the pale stone casement of the window reflecting the tiniest sliver of moonlight. The blackout felt soothing, but the quiet was strange; after eleven years living in London, she couldn’t remember the last time she had experienced such a fundamental absence of noise. Perhaps if she opened a window or stood outside there would be hooting owls or rustling hedgehogs or the distant hum of the M4, but inside the deadening walls of stone and plaster, there was nothing but silence so profound and heavy it felt like she could hold it in her hand.

It was crazy to think it was only eight hours since she’d walked in on Fraser and the Mystery Brunette; it felt like days had passed. She picked apart her feelings for a while, compartmentalising the anger from the hurt and the humiliation, and came to the conclusion that she was mostly angry about the cheating, but actually fairly dispassionate about Fraser no longer being her boyfriend. If she was entirely honest with herself, the relationship had been on the wane for a while, and Fraser screwing somebody else simply eliminated the emotional inconvenience of ending it herself. Gemma had left with her dignity and her dog, which were the only two things she really cared about. There were books and kitchen utensils and other domestic detritus to be collected and dealt with at some point (Fraser could definitely keep the Heal’s cushions), but surprisingly little by way of admin. Fraser owned the flat; she had simply paid him her share of the mortgage and bills each month and thrown some money into the pot for food.

For all his faults, Fraser had always been pretty laid-back about money – not wasteful or frivolous, but not pernickety either. His apparently easy-going nature was one of the things she had liked about him when they’d met at a party a year earlier, along with his mile-wide Scottish grin and the fact that he clearly fancied her rotten. He was only a few inches taller than Gemma’s five foot four, with a slim, runner’s physique and close-cropped hair in a red so dark it was almost brown, but not quite. His boyish face had gained a scattering of freckles that summer, and in those first few heady months Gemma had entertained the idea that he might be The One. But in the six months since she had moved into his flat in Bermondsey, she’d felt more distance than when they had lived on opposite sides of the river.

It wasn’t a single big thing that changed, more a series of tiny fractures in their relationship that seemed to multiply exponentially, like hairline cracks in a porcelain vase. A new tension in his body, less affection, longer periods of moody silence, being cool or dismissive with her friends. In the space of a couple of months, his usually half-full glass had simply drained away. Fraser worked as a property consultant, which meant he contracted himself to property developers, providing sales and marketing support and helping to launch shiny new apartment complexes that cost a bomb and all looked like they were made from the same box of Lego. He talked about things like ‘dynamic strategy’ a lot, pairing tailored suits with Converse trainers to make him look edgy, and bombing round town in a glossy black convertible Mini that cost a fortune to lease, never mind park. He was a shameless networker, sliding into conferences and seminars and launch parties like he was coated in lube. He was charming, well-connected and, at the height of the London property boom, very much in demand.

But in the past couple of years everything had changed – the uncertainty around Brexit and changes to buy-to-let rules had caused a slump in Fraser’s business and, more recently, his mood. He’d talked a good game when Gemma had met him, but she’d soon discovered the colossal chip on his shoulder about being a working-class boy from Clydebank who’d grafted his way up the ladder in an industry riddled with English public schoolboys. But Fraser had put the hours in and success was coming his way; things would get better and he’d ride the wave again.

The previous September he’d gone on a lads’ long weekend to the Algarve with some of his property friends, and later he’d admitted to Gemma in a rare moment of post-sex candour that a fancy villa in Portugal was the game plan – retire early, play tennis, take up golf. Fraser’s hero was Duncan Bannatyne, another Clydebank boy who’d made half a billion or so and now lived in the same resort they’d stayed in; Fraser had seen him having lunch and reading the Telegraph at one of the beach clubs.

Caro had tolerated him at best; she thought he was arrogant and selfish and didn’t take care of Gemma after Aunt Laura died. But Gemma had stuck with him, smoothing out the stress, cutting him acres of slack and doing her best to be the Understanding Girlfriend while he was clearly going through a tough time. Right now it burned pretty hard to realise that Fraser was simply screwing somebody else behind her back. How endlessly fucking disappointing men are.

The Mystery Brunette intrigued Gemma too – she’d never seen her before, and had no idea where Fraser had met her. She’d been slimmer, more polished and considerably younger than Gemma, with shoulder-length glossy hair and immaculate nude pink nails. It suggested her weekday job was a sensible one – law, finance, most likely property. Entirely different from Gemma, who scrubbed up fine for a special occasion but on an average day opted for a more natural look. Fraser had always said he liked that about Gemma, that she was comfortable with her face and her body; he thought overly groomed women looked like dolls. Well, Fraser had definitely managed to get this one’s legs spread to an unrealistically obtuse angle. Presumably she did yoga.

Whoever she was, she’d been surprisingly unbothered at being interrupted by Fraser’s girlfriend; other than hissing the c-word at

Gemma on her way out, she’d simply put her lacy knickers, black jeans and shoes back on, smoothed down her hair and slipped out the front door. It suggested that this weekend tryst was a purely sexual arrangement, and she had another, more stable set-up to fall back on. Gemma wondered how long it had been going on; whether yesterday was a one-off, or if he’d been wafting the cushions to remove the smell of sex every Sunday for weeks. She briefly considered the possibility that she was one of many, but soon gave up on that train of thought. That way madness lies.

In the deepening blackness of her first night in Crowthorpe, Gemma tried to think like a journalist, piecing together the facts to better understand the story. The Mystery Brunette had been wearing flat, baby-blue suede shoes, with no socks – not the kind of thing you’d ever wear on the tube or for a long walk. So she was either local, or keen enough on Fraser to drive south of the river in a global pandemic for an orgasm. No handbag, just a belted cream trenchcoat that she’d draped over a chair, along with her clothes. No coffee mug or water glass, so they hadn’t bothered wit. . .