In at the Deep End: A hilarious and touching contemporary read from Hannah Lynn for 2025

1

Two suitcases, umpteen plastic carrier bags, and an oversized rucksack lined the hallway. Fiona stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around her son and squeezed.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind us not coming?’ she asked, releasing him and dropping down onto her heels. ‘I’d have to rearrange a few things, but if you give me half an hour to ring the office and send a few emails…’

‘Mum.’ Joseph placed his hand on her shoulders. ‘It’s fine. I’ve got this. Everything’s sorted. Dad’ll drop me at the station, and I’ll get a taxi at the other end.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Honestly. It’s not like I’m going away forever.’

‘Well it feels like it is.’

Casting an eye around the hall, she was filled with a mixture of pride, excitement, and sadness. Her baby was all grown up and heading off to university.

‘You’re sure you’ve got everything you need?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘I gave him a selection of pots and pans out of the kitchen too,’ Stephen appeared on the stairs, ‘and a couple of pieces of crockery and cutlery to take with him.’

‘You did?’ She turned, a frown crossing her eyebrows. ‘Which ones? Plates, that is? Nothing that was part of a set?’

‘I don’t think so. They were on their own.’

‘Well can I check before you take them? I don’t want to be left with a mismatched dinner service the next time we have people round to eat.’

Leaving her son, she crossed the hall into the dining room, where more bags overflowed.

‘Which one did you pack them in?’ she asked, to neither of the men in particular.

‘I can’t remember,’ Joseph replied. ‘One of the rucksacks, I think.’

Crouching down, she tugged at the zip of a red holdall.

‘This one?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Fiona, is that really necessary right now?’ Stephen’s frown was almost a mirror image of hers. ‘We need to get going.’

‘Is it necessary to check that we haven’t sent him off to university with part of my mother’s Anna Weatherley dinner set? Yes. What colour were the plates he gave you?’ She directed her question back to Joseph, while freeing the zip from whatever it had caught on.

‘Yellow maybe? Or blue?’

‘Fiona, please. I didn’t give him your mother’s china.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t remember what it looked like?’

‘I know what your mother’s Anna Weatherley looks like. And it hasn’t come out of the cupboard in over a year.’

The condescending edge to his tone rankled with her.

‘We used it the last time Kat and Paul came over for dinner,’ she corrected him.

‘Which was over a year ago.’

Stephen fixed his eyes on hers. She raced through her memory, trying to recall the date. It was so frustrating when he did this, pushed a point so far, especially when he was almost certainly wrong. And now she had to come across as the pedantic one.

‘No,’ she pointed a finger at him, with the smug satisfaction that came with always being right. ‘Your birthday. Eight months ago. We always use it on our birthdays.’

‘Not last year,’ Stephen replied, his face impassive. ‘I had to head to Swansea and you had a conference to set up, remember?’

‘And I ordered Chinese and you got pissed off at all the mess I left,’ Joseph added, obviously feeling the need to join in.

The memory clicked into her mind. ‘Of course, you did.’

How could she have forgotten? She’d arrived back home – after eighteen hours out of the house – feet throbbing, head pounding and desperate for a glass of wine. What she’d found in her exhausted state was an entire worktop covered in congealing patches of sweet-and-sour sauce, with fried rice strewn everywhere and a general smell of grease in the air. By the time she’d cleaned up and taken a shower to remove the stench of soy sauce and general grime of the day, it had been nearly three in the morning.

‘And now someone else will have to deal with your mess.’ She grinned.

‘So, definitely no Anna Weatherley involved then,’ Stephen said, the smallest of smirks playing on his lips. ‘Now, we have to get going. I do have a job to get to you know.’

‘If you’d rather I took him?’

‘No, it’s fine. I already said it’s fine. I’ve got something I need to sort out, anyway.’

The clock in the hall ticked loudly, as if to remind them that time was passing. With a long sigh, she pouted, rubbed her temples, then smiled. ‘I guess it’s a good job we’re going away next week.’ She placed her hand on her husband’s arm. ‘We probably both need the break.’

After seeing her smile fleetingly reciprocated by her husband, she turned back to Joseph. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? It’s Belgium. Chocolate and a spa hotel. It wouldn’t be too late to get you a room.’

‘And miss Fresher’s Week?’ he raised his eyebrows. ‘No chance. It’s fine. Just bring back a load of chocolate for when I come home with my washing.’

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

‘If you think I’m still doing that, you’ve got me confused with someone else’s mother.’

Joseph laughed and looped an arm around her shoulders.

‘How did you grow up so fast?’ she asked, causing him to laugh again. He had such a sweet laugh, the same as he’d had as a child, only deeper. It felt like only a week ago they’d been on holiday in the Seychelles, digging giant holes in the sand for him to bury himself in. And now he was towering over her, making her feel both incredibly small and incredibly old at the same time.

‘Right, that’s enough sentimentality for one day.’ She blinked herself out of the moment. ‘You’ll miss your train, and your dad and I have got work.’

‘I’ll check the plates when I get there,’ he said, his arm still around her. ‘I’ll bring anything I shouldn’t have back with me next time I’m home.’

Nodding mutely, Fiona wrapped her arms around her son and breathed him in for one last time. He hadn’t even left, yet the house already felt emptier, as if part of its soul inhabited his belongings and now he was taking it with him.

‘You’re going to have so much fun,’ she said. ‘Just stay safe and work hard.’

‘I know.’

‘And it’s going to be quiet around here,’ she added.

‘It is,’ Stephen agreed, standing back and observing his son and wife. ‘It’s going to be very quiet indeed.’

The office was a comfortable six Tube stops away, with no line changes involved. It was a little farther out of central London than she would have liked, but what she’d lost in location, she’d more than made up for in space. And, despite being only a two-woman operation, space was paramount. Space and style.

It had taken more than a few tries to get the ambiance just right – and of course it all needed updating every couple of years to ensure it didn’t start to look tired – but right now, Omnivents, Fiona’s high-end, events-planning company, was at the top of its game. A large, silver name plaque greeted clients at the entrance and, inside, a small table offered goodies, ranging from retro sweets to French macarons, depending on who they were expecting that day. When not on offer, said sweets and treats were stored in the stock room, along with hundreds of empty presentation packs, over a thousand lanyards waiting to be filled, two portable mini projectors with built-in screens, and a whole host of other events paraphernalia. Hence the need for space.

On a second, small table, wooden diffusers heated essential oils, spilling citrus and lavender scents into the air, obscuring the unwanted smells that filtered through from the Lebanese restaurant downstairs. This juxtaposition was a double-edged sword; smelling shawarma chicken floating up from the kebab rotisseries at 8 a.m. each morning wasn’t exactly pleasant, but having a falafel wrap with a side of hummus and pita delivered in less than five minutes could be a godsend when she didn’t have time to leave the office for an actual lunch break.

In the twelve years since its inception, Omnivents had built up a client list that made her smile with pride every time she thought of it. Of course, she was small fry compared to the business Stephen worked for, but then most businesses were. (Alton Foods was run by the renowned entrepreneur John Orbiten and had been securely positioned in the top-five food producers in the UK for most of the eleven years Stephen had been there.) But, unlike her husband, who was at the beck and call of his boss twenty-four hours a day, Fiona answered to no one but herself. Omnivents was entirely her own.

During those years, it had gone through more than one reinvention. Back when she’d first started, she had taken any jobs she could get her hands on: sweet sixteen parties, book launches, not to mention weddings. God, she’d had fun with those weddings. But, somewhere along the road, despite the high-society christenings and elaborate twenty-firsts, she’d carved out a particular name for herself as the go-to person for bespoke, high-end corporate events. Now, some of the biggest names in marketing and business used her when it came to launches, Christmas parties, charity galas, and, most of all, seminars. Companies, she had discovered, liked nothing more than holding seminars.

‘Soon you’ll be earning more money than me,’ Stephen had joked a couple of years back. He’d only said it in passing but, to her, it had become a target to aim at, particularly after one of his own company events led to her scoring three new clients.

Event planning as a whole, even being CEO of a company like hers, wasn’t nearly as glamorous as people thought it was, though. It involved a lot of emails. And telephone calls. Not to mention the hours spent laminating itineraries and schedules. Fortunately, when it came to exciting jobs like loading up name tags and filling good-old corporate goodie bags, she had Annabel.

‘Morning, Annabel.’ Fiona placed a takeaway white-chocolate-strawberry-and-cream Frappuccino on her assistant’s desk before reaching into her tote and pulling out a plastic bag. ‘And, I know it’s not your birthday for another month, but I saw this and couldn’t resist it.’

‘For me?’

‘I hope it’s okay.’

‘You didn’t have to do that!’ Annabel bounced up and down in her seat as she spoke, causing her glasses to jump on the bridge of her nose. Mid-twenties and with more energy than a newborn lamb on a sugar high, the bouncing habit had almost cost her the job at her interview five years ago. Every question she’d answered had resulted in her bobbing further and further out of her seat. It wasn’t that Fiona hadn’t admired her enthusiasm, but to look at it every day? She was exhausted after the thirty-minute meeting. Even so, she’d decided to employ her on a trial basis. Three weeks later, she changed the contract to permanent and had never looked back.

Annabel pulled the T-shirt out of the bag and held it up against her chest, measuring it up for size. ‘Oh, my goodness. I love it!’

‘I didn’t know which house to get you, so I got the one with all of them on instead.’

‘It’s perfect.’ She ran her hand along the fabric. ‘Personally, I always thought I was a Ravenclaw, but Pottermore says I’m Hufflepuff. Honestly, I’m not even sure how that’s possible, given I was in the bottom set for—’ She drew to a stop, closing her mouth in an embarrassed smile. ‘Thank you.’ She folded the T-shirt away and picked up her drink. ‘How’s Joseph? Did everything fit in the car? Did he get off okay?’

‘I hope so. They haven’t rung to say otherwise,’ she replied. ‘I guess I’ll hear from him when he gets there.’

‘He must be so excited.’

‘I think he’s been looking forward to this for the last two years.’

‘Oh, he’s going to have such fun.’

Thoughts of a son, out on his own in an unfamiliar city, far from home, would probably have made most mothers sick with anxiety. But Joseph wasn’t like most boys. He had a good head on his shoulders.

‘Is everything sorted for next week? No last-minute issues?’ She brought herself back to the present.

‘Nope.’ Annabel sucked a mouthful of pink liquid through the straw. ‘You are completely clear, but it means that it’s going to be a bit of a crazy one when you get back.’

‘Crazy’s good. Crazy means we’re making money. Which means a nice bonus to help you get that house deposit.’

‘That would be brilliant. It seems every time we manage to save a bit more, the house prices soar and we still can’t afford anything.’

‘I remember that,’ Fiona recalled, her fingertips resting on the handle of her office door. ‘Stephen and I lived on beans and pasta for years. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. I’m not sorry those days are gone.’

‘And now you’re about to head off and celebrate your twentieth wedding anniversary. It’s so exciting. Oh!’ Another little jump. ‘I forgot to say. Some of the promotional things arrived. I assumed they’re for VertX, so I’ve put the boxes at the back of your office.’

‘Fantastic. And you’ll forward me the minutes from that last meeting by lunchtime?’

‘I was about to hit send when you arrived.’

‘You’re an angel. Right, time to start the day then.’

Closing the door behind her, she sat down, shut her eyes and breathed in the aroma. Unlike Annabel, who was happy to start her working day with whatever combination of sugar, cream and additives she could get her hands on, Fiona’s beverage of choice from the coffee shop was always the same: a triple-shot, full-roasted, Guatemalan espresso. Sitting back in her chair, she held the cup under her nose and inhaled the bitter scent. She had a coffee machine in the office, a mid-range number that could produce a good-enough result, particularly useful if clients were visiting, but this first one of the day was special.

This was the one moment when she could relax and not worry about anything. Not about clients, or home, or whether or not she was ever going to get to the gym again. (Despite the fact that she’d been paying sixty pounds a month on membership fees for the last two years, she’d only gone about once a month, if that.) She allowed herself to dream of the upcoming holiday, and of the holidays after that. Only after she’d tasted those last, flavourful tannins, followed by a small glass of water, did she actually feel ready to make a start on the mountain of jobs that preceded a week-long holiday.

Casting the cup into the bin, she turned her attention to the box on the floor. As was typical, half a roll of packing tape had been used to almost impenetrably seal the two foot by two foot container, and it was only after grabbing a letter opener and stabbing her way in that she managed to reach the contents.

‘Excellent,’ she said to herself, as she finally pushed aside the polystyrene beads.

VertX Wellbeing Assistance was her biggest client and had been one of the first corporate businesses to sign with her independently, as opposed to those who’d come through a connection to Stephen or the golf club. Back then, life coaching as a business was barely in the fledgling stage. A fresh and cocky upstart, Dominic Tan had been so full of outrageous and outlandish ideas that, new to the whole corporate conference world, Fiona had been hesitant about even working with him. Ten years later and he had taken the city by storm, turning VertX into the number-one life-coaching platform in the country, with centres across Europe and plans to venture further still. It had been Dominic himself who had convinced her to work with him, after she’d sat in on one of his group sessions. That was back in the day when he used to run them himself, rather than delegate to one of his underlings. There was no doubt, what he did was impressive. He was very impressive.

From out of the box, she pulled a large, plastic bag and from that a smaller one. She tipped out one of the items onto her palm. Dominic was a sucker for a top-notch goodie bag at his conferences. Goodie bags and branding. The name VertX from floor to ceiling. He wanted people to leave his events unable to forget the name. And she knew just how to make that happen.

USB sticks and chrome pens, with the company logo engraved on them, were well-seasoned staples. But it was those little extras that stood out, that told people they meant business. For example, baseball caps in summer and branded gloves in winter. Flight socks or good quality eye masks, if not both, if people had come in by plane. Mugs tended to get left behind, as did water bottles, but she had yet to see anyone turn down a stylish hoodie or portable charger. Better still, electronics kits, with adapters and cables added into the mix. She’d learnt the importance of quirky items too, like customised puzzle cubes. A marketing marvel, in her opinion. After all, you weren’t likely to forget the name of a company after spending four hours attempting to reassemble its logo on six different faces.

‘Go for it,’ Dominic had said, when she’d run the idea by him. ‘And make sure the brand’s clear. Classy and clear. The brand is what sells us now, remember.’

‘I’ll send you through a prototype when it arrives,’ she’d said. ‘And don’t worry. That’s the only gimmicky thing. This conference is going to blow them away.’

‘I trust you,’ he’d assured her.

And go for it she had. With only three weeks until the big day, things were starting to come together. This was her favourite part, when all her ideas fell into place.

She pulled off the wrapping paper and turned it over in her hand.

‘Shit!’

After the discovery of the mislabelled puzzle cube, the entire morning was lost searching for emails she’d sent months ago and then on the phone.

‘It says VortX on them,’ she spat down the line. ‘The company name is VertX. Vert and then a capital X. VortX sounds like they’re going to send you spinning into a whirlpool of misery.

‘Annabel!’ she called out. ‘Please can you send me all the correspondence we’ve had on this. I wrote that order form myself. And I know it said VertX.’

‘Coming through now.’

‘Great. And can you dig out the contact and see who is in charge there? This is why I hate dealing with salespeople.’ The salesperson she was talking about was still on the line and could undoubtedly hear what she was saying. That was half the point.

By the time it was sorted – the company was going to expedite the new correct order, at no extra cost given that, as she already knew, the error was theirs – lunchtime had been and gone. Her head was buzzing from the caffeine Annabel had dutifully supplied her with and, despite the fact that she had, for the first time in years, indulged in a family breakfast that morning to mark Joseph’s departure, her stomach was growling incessantly.

‘Shawarma wrap it is then,’ she said to herself.

Six hours later, the sky had adopted a dusky-pink hue. Dropping her bag to the ground, she turned her key in the front door and let herself into the house. Another emergency had come up only minutes after her wrap had arrived, meaning that when she finally got around to eating, all that was left was a half-disintegrating piece of bread, some drastically wilted lettuce, and a few pieces of cold, hardened chicken. As such, she’d taken one bite before dropping the whole thing in the bin.

‘Stephen?’ she called, kicking off her shoes.

She hung up her coat and headed to the kitchen. He was sitting at the counter, drink in hand.

‘You’re home. God, I need a drink.’ She took a can of tonic from the fridge, cracked it open and swigged a mouthful before pouring the rest into a tall glass and topping it up with a generous measure of gin. She took a long gulp. ‘Christ, I needed that.’

‘So,’ he said, watching her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask how my day went?’

She finished another mouthful. ‘I assumed you’d have messaged if there’d been any problems?’

‘What about Joseph? Have you called him?’

Removing the glass from her lips, she frowned at him. ‘What’s wrong with you today?’

‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just thought you might want to find out how our son was, on his first day away from home.’

‘It’s not his first day away from home. And, like he said, he’ll probably be back again next weekend with his washing. Anyway, I was going to ring him later.’

Rolling her eyes, she headed back to the fridge which, being a Friday, was devoid of anything that could be assembled into a meal. She took out her phone, began to browse Deliveroo and was about to make the suggestion of Thai, when her gaze fell on two large suitcases.

‘Did you pack for me?’ she asked, suddenly realising that job had been on her to-do list all week. ‘You didn’t have to do that. When did you find the time? I was going to check the weather, anyway. You know I prefer to sort things out myself.’

‘I didn’t pack for you.’

‘You didn’t?’

It took a few seconds for her to think of another explanation.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Have you rung Joseph? Does he know he’s forgotten them?’

Her question was met with silence.

‘Stephen, did you hear me? Does Joseph know he left these behind?’

‘They’re not Joseph’s bags,’ he replied.

She shook her head, confused. ‘What do you mean, they’re not his bags?’

‘They’re mine.’

She shook her head again and went back to her phone.

‘That’s ridiculous, Stephen, we’re only going for a week. And we’ll probably spend most of the time in the spa anyway. Why don’t you take them back upstairs and see if there’s something you can get rid of?’

Her suggestion was met with more silence, which hung there ominously.

‘Stephen, did you hear what I said?’

With jaw clenched, he finally lifted his head and looked at her.

‘They’re not for the holiday, Fiona. I’m not going to Brussels. I’m leaving you.’

2

The hallway clock chimed and a peal of church bells sounded in the distance. But, to Fiona, it was all peripheral, as she struggled to understand her husband.

‘What? You mean you’re leaving for work?’

‘No, I mean I’m leaving for good.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ve made arrangements.’

She blinked, his words hitting a fog somewhere between his mouth and her brain.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m going, Fiona.’

‘You’re leaving me? Stephen, you’re not making any sense. What are you talking about?’

He pressed his lips together, as if he were deliberating the top-prize question in a TV game show. When he opened his mouth to speak again, it came out in a rush.

‘I can’t do it any more, Fiona. I can’t.’

‘You can’t do what?’

‘This. Us.’ He motioned between them. ‘Pretending everything’s okay. That this marriage works.’

‘This marriage does work.’

‘Perhaps for you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What do you think it’s supposed to mean?’

Whether the question was rhetorical or not didn’t matter; she wasn’t answering it. Shaking her head, she tipped the glass and downed the rest of her drink in one go.

‘You can’t honestly kid yourself you like this, can you?’ he questioned. ‘We never see each other. We’re like ships in the night, traversing entirely different bloody oceans.’

‘Because we’re busy. We.’ She pointed back and forth between the two of them to ensure absolute clarity. ‘We are busy people.’

Putting her glass down, she crossed the kitchen and sank onto the stool beside him. They’d had fights before, plenty of them. Almost always at a time when one or both of them had an important