by Jane Fallon
‘Emma or something? I couldn’t work out who she was talking about …’
‘I can’t think of any Emmas. Besides, when Georgia and I meet up it’s always just us. I don’t think I’ve introduced her to anyone. Did she definitely say it was me?’
He rubs at his eyes. ‘I thought she did. I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.’
‘What are you going to do now?’ she asks gently. She’s nearly finished her drink already and it seems too pushy to ask if he wants to stay for another.
‘I don’t know. I want to go home. But I want to go home and it be like it was before all this started. If she’s never going to let it drop then I don’t know what to do.’
She fiddles with the stem of her empty glass, hoping he’ll get the message. ‘Maybe give her some time. Don’t contact her for a bit. If she thinks you’re trying to pressurize her into believing you she’ll probably shut you out altogether. I can work on her if you want? Try to make her see sense.’
‘Would you?’ He looks at her so hopefully that she almost feels bad.
Almost.
Part 2
* * *
CHAPTER 22
Patricia had been the final straw. She knew Georgia had created her out of love. That she was trying to make Lydia feel better. But actually all it had done was illuminate once again how differently their lives had turned out. It was humiliating. Her mega-successful friend thinking that she needed a fake confidence boost, and to sell a couple of greetings cards and she’d be happy. And, to be fair, at first she had been. Patricia’s enthusiasm for her work had buoyed her up for a few days. Made her feel valued.
And then, of course, Georgia had slipped up catastrophically. Given herself away.
After that Lydia had started noticing other little things. A turn of phrase here and there. Georgia obviously didn’t even realize she was doing it. And Lydia didn’t either until she read back through their messages to see if her suspicions could be confirmed. Idiosyncrasies in spelling that Lydia knew so well because she and Georgia used to copy each other’s essays back in the day. That’s what happened when you knew someone inside out: you could spot them anywhere.
To say Lydia was angry was an understatement. She was incandescent. It didn’t matter that it was an act of kindness. In her eyes it was an act of patronage. But in the worst way. An act of being patronizing. Look at my poor failure of a friend, it screamed. Pity her. She can’t make it on her own so I’m handing her a few crumbs from above. See how generous I am.
Well, fuck it.
The thing is she loves Georgia. They’ve been best friends forever. More than that. Intertwined in each other’s lives like two strands of ivy. But she’s sick of Georgia having it all and her having nothing. She’s sick of Georgia getting money and recognition for drawings that she could have done herself when she was ten years old. Younger even. And – if she’s being really honest – she’s sick of Georgia and Nick. Not because she doesn’t want Georgia to have a happy relationship. She’s not that petty, however it might look. She just doesn’t want her to have it with Nick.
Because a few months ago Lydia realized that she was in love with Nick herself.
It had hit her like a bolt of lightning one night. The three of them were sitting in Nick and Georgia’s patio garden, enjoying the early autumn heatwave. Nick was barbequing, swearing at the dying coals, laughing about the fact they probably wouldn’t be eating till bedtime. It was just starting to get dark and the fairy lights were twinkling along the high back wall. It was hot. One of those evenings where the temperature never seems to drop. No delineation between day and night. The smell of the honeysuckle that spilled over the fence from the neighbouring house sweet and heady. She can even remember what she was wearing: a pale yellow halterneck dress and sparkly sandals. Can still see the purple polish on her toenails, her smooth brown legs. She had taken a photo – Nick’s tanned hands with the tongs, the orange glow of the coals, the amber lights – and put it on Insta. Evenings with friends are the best!!! A slew of hashtags. She knew that most of her friends would assume she was on a date, some handsome suitor impressing her with his caveman fire-making skills, and she was happy to let that assumption fly.
She was tipsy. They all were. Just slightly. Just enough to soften the hard edges. In the near distance she could hear soft music, people laughing, the pop of a champagne cork. It was one of those evenings you never wanted to end.
‘I absolutely love you both,’ she’d said out of nowhere and they’d all laughed. She had a tendency to get sentimental when she’d had a couple of glasses.
‘Ooh, here she is,’ Nick had said. ‘I wondered when she’d get here.’ Georgia had reached over and squeezed her hand.
And then it had happened. Not because of anything he did or said. Nothing was different. Nothing changed from one minute to the next. Except that she had looked at him and smiled and he’d smiled back and her whole body had tingled. She’d had to catch her breath, will her heart to slow down. She knew this feeling. She was prone to crushes. Fierce and all-consuming for a couple of days and then gone as quickly as they arrived. It was just lust, she knew that. Not love. Usually she enjoyed them. Welcomed the feverish excitement. But that’s because usually they weren’t this inappropriate. She told herself to ignore it. Crushes needed to be fed. Ignored, it would die of starvation in a few days.
Except that it never did.
It grew.
She had no idea why, where it had come from. She and Nick had always got on well. He was funny. Good company. Loyal to Georgia in a kind of quiet, effortless way that felt a hundred times more authentic than the men she always met who felt the need to make over-the-top protestations of love while secretly texting other women snapshots of their dicks when she wasn’t looking. Even more so since he’d had that – totally out of character – midlife crisis and Georgia had managed to get past it. He’d been like a rescue dog, overwhelmed with gratitude for its second chance in life. Determined to prove it was worth saving.
Lydia could only put it down to some kind of cumulative effect. A slow build that took twenty years to reach a critical mass. The world’s slowest avalanche.
Now she would find herself thinking about him when she couldn’t sleep at night. Weaving elaborate fantasies. At first just sexual (she would blush whenever she saw him from that point on, although luckily neither he nor Georgia seemed to notice) but then deeper, about a future she knew could never happen. About a perfect home. Her sketching, him cooking. She hated to cook and he loved it so that made them an ideal fit. Her career taking off to incredible heights, success, recognition, but all reflected in the pleasure it would give him. How proud he would be of her. They were adolescent fantasies, she knew that, but they were also what she wanted. She wanted the dream.
Georgia would feature in her imaginings too. Sidelined but happy for them. Somehow having come to the realization that this was for the best. Lydia sometimes got caught up in trying to imagine the details of this. Georgia had fallen out of love but wanted Nick to be happy? She had met someone else but Nick was OK with it? She wanted to fulfil a lifelong dream to travel without the burden of having to worry about anyone else’s needs? Some nights she never got beyond this part of her waking dream. It was critical that she get the foundations right. She couldn’t relax and enjoy the later part without knowing that her friendship with Georgia was intact. That Georgia was as content as she and Nick were. That the three of them could still hang out. She knew it made no sense but she seemed powerless to lose herself in it any other way.
As the months went by her fantasies became more and more elaborate. Movies. Then mini-series. Then full-on five-times-a-week soap operas. No other man she met came close. She wondered if she had loved him all along. Deep down. If that was why she always knew her liaisons were doomed from the start. Why put herself or anyone else through it? She would never have acted on it though. Not in a million centuries. When the confines of her (single-income and no
t a very big one at that) flat felt stifling – cold and lifeless, show-home clean because there was no one else there to mess it up, and tidying gave her something to do on lonely evenings and weekends – imagining her alternative life comforted her. She was sick of going out, meeting seemingly random men in pubs and theatre foyers, making small talk and then excuses. She wanted someone to stay in with. To eat with and argue over what they were going to watch on Netflix. And she wanted that person to be Nick and only Nick. She was powerless over how she felt. There was no point feeling bad because there was nothing she could do about it. Or so she’d thought.
And then, in her fit of anger about Patricia – and one too many glasses of wine down – she had sent the message about the big secret. She couldn’t take it back. The next day she had thought about backtracking, shame washing over her like sweat. She could say it was about a different friend, fudge it somehow. Had she given away that it was Georgia she was talking about? She’d checked back, scared to look. Shit, she had. OK. She could make up some anodyne rumour that Georgia wouldn’t care about. It didn’t even have to involve Nick. Georgia would write it off as a hopeless overreaction on Lydia’s part and it would be forgotten.
But then a tiny voice in her head had said why not finish what she’d started? If she played it right Georgia would never know that it was all a lie. She would never blame Lydia for anything. It probably wouldn’t work anyway, she told herself. Georgia would almost certainly believe Nick when he protested his innocence and forget all about it. All she was doing was opening a tiny crack. If it grew into a fissure that meant there was something fundamentally unstable in the first place. In which case …
So she threw herself head first into the deception. Held back just enough to fuel Georgia’s paranoia. Made a point of avoiding bumping into Nick (that had been hard! She’d been aching to see him) so that Georgia would believe she felt uncomfortable being around him. And she waited.
She tried to forget that she knew Georgia’s Achilles heel. Her fear of being laughed at behind her back. Her absolute obsession with truth and transparency. Georgia had always believed she could deal with anything so long as everyone revealed all their cards. She had an almost pathological hatred of being lied to, of being the butt of the joke, as she saw it. Nick hiding something from her again would be a deal-breaker. The ultimate betrayal. Lydia had pushed that thought to the back of her mind.
‘I need to go home and collect more stuff,’ Nick says now, and she notices for the first time that the shirt he’s wearing is a shade too big. Cut for rugby-playing Dom’s oversized shoulders. The sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, thick dark hair on muscular forearms.
‘I think she mentioned that she’s going over to Harry and Anne Marie’s tomorrow night. If … I mean … I’m not trying to say go when she’s not there because you probably want to talk but it might be better …’
‘Do you think it’ll make things worse if I see her at the moment? Shouldn’t we be trying to thrash it out?’ he says.
‘Just until she’s calmed down a bit. I think that’s why she asked me to act as intermediary … she doesn’t want to talk to you yet. Beyond the essentials, I mean …’
‘I guess she’s not prepared to give me a fair hearing, anyway,’ Nick says, worrying at a scratch on the table. ‘So I should probably stay away. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.’
‘Exactly. Just for a while. Like I said, I’ll work on her,’ Lydia says kindly, shrugging into her coat. He hasn’t taken up her hint of another drink. He’s too preoccupied with his failing marriage, she thinks, and who could blame him? She can’t begin to imagine how confused he must be feeling.
‘I just want things to be back how they were,’ he says, and Lydia has to resist the urge to slide her hand over the table on top of his. She needs to move slowly. Not crowd him. Just be there when he decides to accept that it’s hopeless and he’s ready to move on. Right place, right time. Right man, right woman.
‘They will be,’ she says. ‘Just give her space.’
CHAPTER 23
Anne Marie and Harry’s flat is comfortable chaos as usual. Worse than usual (or should I say better?) because I’ve added Igor into the mix. He greets Nina like the old friend she is, places his paws on Gino’s shoulders which, considering Gino has shot up to five foot eleven over the past couple of years, is no mean feat, and even their middle child, Billie, who is going through a serious emo phase that precludes enthusiasm about most things, gets caught up in trying to teach him how to cover his ears with his paws if she says the words Ed Sheeran. The flat smells of baking and cinnamon. There’s some kind of one-pot wonder bubbling away on the stove and home-made bread cooling on a rack. It’s like The Waltons with fewer children but more attitude.
Harry grabs me in a hug before I’ve even taken my coat off. ‘Are you OK?’
I nod into his shoulder. Harry is a bit like a human wrapped in a duvet. He has a soft outer covering that gives him a kind of cuddly appearance. Blurry round the edges. Edie once told him he looked like her teddy bear and I haven’t been able to get that image out of my head ever since – round-faced, reddish-haired, big button eyes. The last couple of years he’s been sporting a full-on beard and it gives him the appearance of a benevolent giant. Which is exactly what he is.
The idea that Anne Marie cheated on him makes me shudder.
‘Yeah. No, but … you know …’
‘I can’t believe it,’ he says, and all I can come up with is ‘Me neither.’ I need to remind them not to say too much in front of the kids because my twins are still clueless. Mobile phones can hide a multitude of deceptions. If I call them while I’m out on a walk with the dog why would they ever wonder why I wasn’t passing the phone over to their dad? This morning I sent a text to Nick: I haven’t mentioned anything to the kids. Please don’t.
Of course not, he’d sent back, which made me wonder if he was still hoping we could work things out. I knew he was still staying at Dom’s, or at least, that’s what he’d told Harry. Maybe this was all too much too soon for Lou-stroke-Siobhan. Maybe the idea of commitment had sent her running to the hills. A casual fling had suddenly turned into something life-changing and she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted. Well, boo hoo.
Anne Marie appears with a large vodka and tonic. She knows without asking that I only like one cube of ice. Lots of lemon. Harry hands me over to her like a pass the parcel and she swoops me up, the lonely ice cube rattling in the glass.
‘Come into the kitchen.’
The two of them follow me in and shut the door. A scuffed wooden table fills up most of the available space, six mismatched chairs set around it. Harry clears a space in the detritus of homework, some kind of bead craft and food preparation. I move a flute – Billie’s – from a chair and sit down.
‘The kids are on strict instructions to stay out of the way and keep Igor amused till dinner,’ Anne Marie says, plonking herself into the seat next to me. ‘I haven’t told Harry all the … you know …’
I look up at Harry, who’s hovering anxiously. ‘What did Nick say to you?’
He shrugs. ‘Not much. Just that you were having some problems and he’d moved into Dom’s …’
‘Did he say “moved into”? Not just he was staying there?’
Harry looks at the floor, like a guilty toddler. He has no guile. He could never get away with deceiving anyone. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s that then, I guess,’ I say, trying to sound offhand.
‘It makes no sense,’ Anne Marie butts in. ‘Can I talk about it in front of Harry?’
‘You don’t have to …’ he says quickly.
‘It’s OK.’ I nod. I fill him in with the edited highlights. His face is a picture. A kaleidoscope of shock, horror, revulsion.
‘There’s no way …’ he says when I finish.
I shake my head. ‘That was my first reaction.’
‘I’ll fucking kill him,’ Harry says, and I almost laugh. The idea of Harry
killing anything is ludicrous. He once spent half an hour in a pub garden trying to revive a bee while the rest of us sat shivering in the car and waited to go home. In the end we persuaded him to bring it with him and then, when it perked up, he started to fret that it would never find its family again, so he chauffeured it back to the pub and let it go there. And what thanks did he get? It never wrote. It never called. ‘I mean … if it’s true, if he’s … then he’s the lowest of the low. Lower.’
‘I just can’t see it,’ Anne Marie says. I can’t look at her. I stare out of their third-floor window as thick snowflakes start to tumble past.
‘And he seemed really down when I spoke to him. I assumed it was your decision for him to leave.’ Harry is warming to his theme. ‘He actually made me feel sorry for him.’
I suddenly feel overwhelmed. I shouldn’t have come over. I should have stayed at home licking my wounds, not be having to deal with anyone else and their shattered illusions of my husband. Managing my own disappointment is hard enough. Harry is like a child who’s just found out that Santa doesn’t exist, that Superman is nothing more than a bloke who likes to play dress-up.
‘I can’t move on till I know the truth,’ I say, only realizing as it comes out of my mouth that that’s what I need. To move on. My marriage is over regardless of whether Nick is regretting his actions. Not even because of the affair itself but because of the way he’s dealt with – is dealing with – it. Lying to me over and over again. Letting me beg and plead. Refusing to put me out of my misery. It’s a side of him I’ve never seen before. A cruel, calculating side. Whatever happens I can’t be married to that person. Joe and Edie pop into my mind. Ridiculously, I think about Christmas – where we’ll all go. Will they have to split their time? Lunch at mine and dinner at his? – even though it’s still only February. Tears rush to my eyes.