Seven Lies (ARC)
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“I think it’s because now that we’re husband and wife we just feel
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like a flat probably isn’t the right sort of home for us anymore, you
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know?” Marnie continued. “We just feel like a house would be more
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appropriate. I love that flat, but there’s an argument, isn’t there, that 12
this is the time to start thinking about the next steps in life. Room to
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grow and all that. Maybe in September. I think that’s meant to be a
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good time to sell.”
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“You should do what you want to do,” I said. “Whatever feels right.”
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“You sound just like Charles,” she replied. “You’re both so sensible.
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He keeps saying that we’re only just married, that we have all the time
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in the world to do these things, that there’s no pressure whatsoever. But 19
I think he wants to do it too, you know, just that he doesn’t want to be
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pushy. I think he likes the idea of more space. I could get him a dog—
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you know the one he wants; is it a husky? But then, as he says, there’s
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always more time, and dogs are so much work, aren’t they?”
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I didn’t respond.
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“Jane?”
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I turned off my bedside lamp and closed my eyes.
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“Shit,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Was that insensitive? There isn’t al-
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ways more time. I know that. It’s why I think this way, I think, because
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of Jonathan. I know that sometimes life shifts unexpectedly, that the
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choices get taken away. Shit. Jane, I’m sorry. I was just . . . Jane?”
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“It’s fine,” I replied. “Really.”
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I wanted to go to sleep. I didn’t want to have this conversation.
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I could see that her life was expanding as mine was shrinking. I had
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once had the conversations that she was now having— asked myself
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those very same questions— and looked ahead toward a life that offered
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answers.
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Jonathan had always wanted to move away from the city, to live in
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the countryside: he’d wanted to keep chickens, and have more bed-
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rooms than children, and build a treehouse at the bottom of the yard.
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“You know the smog outside the flat? Well, there’d be none of that,”
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he’d say, trying to persuade me.
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“Did you hear that?” he’d whisper, in the middle of the night, in
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response to bottles being broken or tires screeching on the street out-
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side. “You don’t get that in the countryside.”
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He’d go to the supermarket and, as he unpacked the vegetables,
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each clinically wrapped in plastic, he would say, “I could have grown
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this myself.”
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I knew that eventually I would say: “Yes. Okay. Let’s do it.”
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But that moment never came.
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Chapter Twelve
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k
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H
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ere’s the thing. When something starts to slip away, it becomes
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almost impossible to think about anything other than how it
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was at its best. I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. I could only work 14
backward through our friendship and try to find moments that felt
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equally fragile.
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We had one row at school, only one. It was about something and
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nothing, as arguments so often are. She always pressed snooze on her
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alarm clock, half a dozen times at least, until she was frantic and rush-
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ing and falling into the classroom. We were partnered in every lesson,
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and drama was first on a Thursday. Almost every activity required a
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pair; a one on its own simply wasn’t enough. She rarely apologized for
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being so late. And eventually I lost my temper. It was selfish of her not 23
to think of me, to forget that her behavior affected others. I said that I 24
wasn’t sure that I wanted to be her partner anymore. She said fine, if
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that was how I felt, and she stormed off with her scarf trailing behind
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her and her homework still clasped in her fist.
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This friction lasted an entire day. We didn’t sit together and we
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walked separately between classes. The hostility was unprecedented.
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We were normally the harmonious anomaly in among endless teenage
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conflict. Our teacher was so shocked by the situation that she sat us
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down after our last class and unraveled the issue— with words like
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“responsibility” and “compassion”— and insisted that we stop being so
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immature and learn to address our problems in an adult manner.
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And that was it. The only argument. We forgave each other, but we
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didn’t forget it. Instead, we carried it like a trophy, because just one
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argument in the course of an entire friendship seemed something worth
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celebrating.
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There hadn’t been another blip since. We’d moved to separate cities
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to study at eighteen but it felt like we were barely apart, because there 09
was always a reason to call, a story to share, something only she’d un-
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derstand. We snapped back together three years later. And then we
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were better than we’d ever been, a concrete team against a world that
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seemed confounding.
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It was in that first year in the Vauxhall flat— perhaps only a month
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or two before I met Jonathan— that Marnie first tried to quit he
r job.
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She’d written a letter of resignation, but her boss, Steven, had refused
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to accept it. She’d returned to the flat that evening perplexed and rather 17
despondent but determined to find a solution. She hated the work and
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the people and her boss in particular, who thought he was irresistible to 19
younger women, which was very much not the case. I’d met him a few
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times before— at her various work events— and it was clear that he still 21
thought himself as handsome as he’d been thirty years earlier.
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Marnie tried to resign again the following week. She cornered her
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boss and confronted him with her letter in front of their managing di-
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rector.
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“As discussed,” she’d said, firmly, “my resignation.”
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“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Abi had said. “You must be disap-
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pointed, Steven.”
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“Very,” he’d replied as he reluctantly accepted the envelope.
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“I hope you’re moving on to exciting new things,” Abi had said, and
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she’d smiled. She had been appointed a few months earlier. She was six
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foot one and fiercely ambitious. The younger women in the company
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were impressed by her; the older men less so.
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And so Steven wasn’t going to make things easy; he was determined
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to make Marnie suffer for the simple crime of suggesting that she might
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not be entirely content in his presence. He pulled Marnie aside later
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that day and informed her that she had a six- month notice period and
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would be expected to serve the full duration. Marnie argued that it was
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ridiculous— that she hadn’t known what she was signing and that it was a
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disproportionate term of notice for an assistant— but he was insistent.
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That evening she threw herself onto the sofa and buried her head
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beneath the cushions and seethed because it wasn’t fair, simply wasn’t
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going to happen, because she couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, couldn’t be
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expected to work for such an odious man for another six months.
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“Help me,” she pleaded, peeking at me from between two pillows.
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“I will die if I spend another month with that man. I can smell his
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breath on my clothes,” she said, “and I can hear his nasal laugh grating
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in my head all the time, even when we aren’t together, even on week-
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ends. Help me, Jane.”
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So we devised a plan. I had done this before, of course, without her,
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to retaliate against her seemingly charming but fundamentally volatile
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first boyfriend, but it was so different, so invigorating to be sharing the 19
anticipation. Their company’s annual summer party was the following
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weekend. It was a big event designed to charm their suppliers and in-
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vestors and to thank the employees and to entertain their partners. It
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was held on the river in the garden of the company’s largest pub and the
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attention to detail was inspiring. It was themed— they always were—
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and this year the spotlight was on the circus.
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We arrived early. Giant gates sprayed in gold paint had been erected
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in the car park and we were ushered in by two clowns and directed
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through to the circus itself. There was a big top tent in stretched blue
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plastic and a man on stilts strolled past in bright red flares, looking
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straight ahead, as though entirely unaware of the world playing out
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around his feet, the smaller lives scrabbling at ground level.
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Marnie took my hand and together we weaved through the masses.
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She was wearing a black leotard and sheer black tights and she looked
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elegant, confident, as though her body was the very thing that she
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wanted it to be. I was wearing a long floral skirt and a small crystal ball 04
on a chain around my neck. I had wanted to wear my jeans.
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Marnie paused in front of the bar and pointed at a very tall woman
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dressed in a red leather jacket with striped gold cuffs and black leather 07
lapels. A small red top hat was perched on her head and a bull whip was
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clasped in her fist.
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“There,” she said. “That’s her; that’s Abi.”
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I nodded. “And where will I find you?” I asked.
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Marnie pointed at a wooden caravan just beyond the popcorn stand.
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It was painted lime green and had bright yellow stripes down the sides.
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“Behind that,” she said. “In fifteen minutes.”
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I approached Abi. I interrupted her conversation. I introduced myself
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as Pippa Davies.
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She recognized the name immediately. Pippa Davies was the daugh-
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ter of one of their principal suppliers. Pippa had called Marnie the pre-
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vious week and said that she was no longer able to attend, and Marnie
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had chosen not to amend the guest list.
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Abi was delighted to see me. She led me through the circus— she
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wanted to show me their site, their flagship pub, the scale of their
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operation— and she was pitch- perfect as she sold me their success and
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their ambition. I followed her willingly and slowly, subtly, focused on
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maneuvering us past the popcorn stand and toward the green caravan.
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“This is very elegant,” I said, and I started to circle it.
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“Sure,” said Abi, a little surprised by the unexpected detour. “I ex-
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pect your father has mentioned the parties we host for the customers
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too: Saint Patrick’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s Eve.”
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I stopped and I stared. It had worked. I could see that they were
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squabbling and so I cleared my throat. Marnie looked up and then her
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out, and she stepped toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. It
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looked illicit, flirtatious, and I felt both repulsed and delighted.
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“We feel that attention to detail is paramount and, for me, this is
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one of the many things that separates us from our competitors and— ”
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Abi looked up and made a tiny noise, a tiny gasp, and her hands flew
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up to cover her lips, her whip falling to the ground beside her.
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“Steven,” she said. “What on earth . . . ? What is this?”
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He furrowed his eyebrows— it was rather endearing, really— and he
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glanced among the three of us, bewildered and unable to process what
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exactly was happening and why his boss was looking so shocked, so
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horrified. And then he understood. He looked at Marnie and he raised
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his eyebrows and he turned his head to one side as though about to
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shout, and then he recognized that there was a more important con-
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cern, someone else who he ought to address.
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“Abi,” he said, and he stepped backward away from Marnie. “This is
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not what it looks like. This is absolutely— ”
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“Don’t,” said Marnie, and she held her hand up and out. “Please.
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Let’s just be honest. We can’t keep this a secret, not now, not anymore.”
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She was not a great actress, probably not even a good one, and her
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words were stilted and sharp, her actions unnatural. But he was playing
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his part so perfectly. His wide eyes were scanning the garden either side 21
of us, presumably looking for his wife. His mouth was opening and
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closing, unsure what to say, unsure where to start.
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“I’m sorry. We should have told you,” continued Marnie. “But for
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obvious reasons we’ve been trying to keep this quiet. But you should
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know, I think, that Stevie and I . . . we’re in a relationship.”
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“A relationship?” said Abi.
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“A what?” said Steven.
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“And I know— I’ve checked the policy— that one of us needs to re-
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sign. I understand and you know already that I’ve been thinking about
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my next steps and— ”
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“Effective immediately?” asked Abi, clearly keen to find the least