by Jane Fallon
‘Hey, Rebecca,’ he says out of nowhere. ‘Tell Lorna about the email thing.’
‘Oh no,’ I say, trying to make light of it. ‘She doesn’t want to be bored with that.’
I give Alex an imploring look that says ‘please don’t,’ but he just smirks at me. Dan, who knows what’s coming, tries to step in and help, but all he can manage is, ‘God, this sea bass is delicious,’ which does nothing to halt the oncoming juggernaut.
‘Well, I will, then. So…’ Alex says, turning to Lorna and taking a big hammy deep breath. ‘You won’t believe this…’
The email incident is not one of which I am proud. It was funny at the time, don’t get me wrong. Reliving it gave me, Dan, Alex and Isabel several drunken evenings of hilarity, and all of us – Alex included – would laugh until tears rolled down our cheeks. Now, suddenly, it doesn’t seem so side splitting. It seems a bit mean-spirited and childish, not to mention a flagrant breach of someone’s privacy and, probably, for all I know, against the law. I’m hesitating before I repeat it. You’ll laugh. That’s everyone’s first reaction. But then, like everyone else, you’ll say, ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’
OK, here goes…
A couple of years ago I was looking for something on Lorna’s computer in the office. Legitimately. She was off sick or something and I needed to find a copy of a contract she had been sent that had suddenly become urgent because the client was due to start the job in two days’ time and Joshua hadn’t even clapped eyes on it, let alone approved it. So, with Joshua’s blessing, I went into Outlook and scanned through her in box looking for something that might pertain to the document we needed.
I found it pretty easily and was about to click on it when I noticed that the message above came from someone called Les and had the intriguing subject line ‘stiff as a board’. No, I chastised myself. Don’t open it. But it was during one of those periods when I suspected Lorna was having one of her dating-agency romances, and curiosity got the better of me. That and the fact that I thought I might get a funny story out of it, something to make the others laugh down the pub. I have to say, I hadn’t bargained on how funny, but anyway. To cut a long story short, I opened Les’s email and read a detailed description of, as the title suggested, his rather overexcited feelings the morning after they had clearly had a night before.
‘Can hardly walk,’ he’d written poetically. ‘Scared to stand up from behind my desk in case somebody notices.’
So far, so funny. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t laugh? This is the point, obviously, where I should be telling you how I then printed off the document I needed, turned Lorna’s computer off and never poked my nose into her personal life again. Unfortunately that’s not exactly what happened. In fact, what I actually did was to look backwards for the previous missive from Les to see if that also contained anything juicy. This one was entitled Re:re:re:re:re: etcetera. That one email promised to detail the whole history of their relationship, stretching over nearly two weeks of correspondence. Before I could stop myself I had pressed print and the whole thing was chuntering out of the big printer over by my desk. I added the requested contract to the pile and switched off her computer. When the printer went quiet I stuffed the incriminating pages into my bag and forgot about them till Joshua and Melanie went out for lunch, leaving me alone.
I started at the beginning. They’d clearly not been going out for long at that point and the emails still had the flirty mixed with matey tone of a burgeoning relationship. I scrolled down, only half concentrating on what I was reading. Bored, I was about to put the whole lot in the shredder when I saw it. Overnight their communication became loaded with sexual references and heavy-handed eroticism, which said to me that they had finally got it on. Blushing, I read through all the ‘I loved it when you…’s and the ‘next time I’m going to…’s. It was oddly fascinating but also completely ludicrous, which, let’s face it, everyone’s cyber pillow talk would be when read in the cold light of day. Laughing, I picked up the phone. This was too good not to share. I tried Isabel but she was engaged, Dan was in a meeting, so I called Alex.
‘Guess what Lorna calls her clitoris,’ I asked as soon as he answered.
‘Do I win a prize?’
‘Her bean.’ I could hardly get the word out. Alex snorted.
‘Did she tell you this?’
‘No, I… well, I saw it on an email.’
‘No!’ he said, mock horrified.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to look at any more.’
But I read him some of the choicer passages and he pissed himself laughing and then, later, as we perused the dinner menus, Alex made me rehash it all again for Dan and Isabel’s benefit. To give myself credit, I hesitated because once the immediate moment was over I started feeling a little bit guilty. Not to mention the fact that while I knew that Alex with his cruel streak would find the whole thing hilarious I wasn’t nearly so sure about Dan or Isabel.
Alex pushed me. ‘Go on,’ he kept saying. ‘Honestly, you have to hear this.’
So I told the whole story again and, at one point, when I got to the bit about going back through Lorna’s old emails, Dan said, ‘Oh no, don’t go there…’ But, to be fair, they both laughed because it was hard not to. It was just so… ridiculous. All evening Alex kept repeating the phrases in a stupid voice that he reserved for whenever he talked about Lorna, and then, when the waiter came over to tell us the specials and the soup of the day was White Tuscan Bean we all sniggered at once like a bunch of ten-year-olds.
It was cruel, of course it was, but, in my defence, it was a victimless crime. There was no way I was ever going to let Lorna know what I’d seen. I certainly wasn’t going to make a habit of reading her mail. It would remain an in joke between four friends who would never share it with anyone else. Until now, it seemed. If Alex really was as fond of Lorna as he was trying to have us believe, would he really risk hurting her by letting her know we had all of us – him included – been laughing at her behind her back?
‘Well?’ Lorna is saying, waiting breathlessly for Alex to tell her whichever hilarious story he seems to think she’d love so much.
Alex looks at me. ‘Actually,’ he says. ‘I’ll save it. It’s not that great a story.’
I sigh an almost audible sigh of relief. Lorna’s not giving up that easily, though.
‘No,’ she squeaks. ‘You have to tell me now! You can’t just give an anecdote a build up like that and then not tell it!’
‘Oh, Alex,’ Dan leaps in, seeing an opening. He’s clearly not quite worked out what he’s going to say next, though, because he grinds to a halt almost immediately.
‘Erm… I’ve been meaning to say to you. Did you see that… erm… that article in the Guardian about that new car? The one that’s all electric but it’s a sports model?’
I have no idea where this came from. Dan has no interest in cars. Alex has no interest in cars. But it manages to divert attention from the email fiasco for a moment. And because Alex has clearly also decided to bail out he goes along with the car conversation for just long enough for Lorna to lose interest in the previous topic.
I can breathe again. The guilt that had washed over me when I thought that Alex was going to tell the whole embarrassing story means that I feel better disposed towards Lorna for the rest of the meal. I try to smile and nod while she talks. I even think about trying to join in the conversation myself, but there seems little point; she doesn’t actually seem to need any feedback. The rest of the meal passes off uneventfully and, thankfully, at ten it is all over with no one feeling in the mood to suggest going on anywhere else.
At home Dan and I go through our usual routine. A quick debrief over a glass of brandy, bed, read for five minutes then lights out. He is asleep almost immediately as he almost always is. These days, like most couples with many years and two children behind them, bed is primarily for sleeping. I look at him fondly in the half dark, but I can’t shake the image of Alex and Lorna
in the smug first flush of coupledom. There’s no denying that their physical attraction is real, whatever Alex’s underlying motives might be. His hand on her knee, her rubbing his thigh as she told some story or other. It unsettles me a bit, and I wonder if it does Dan too, this blatant display of sexual chemistry. It makes me feel inadequate, unexciting and unexcited. I briefly think about waking Dan up, telling him I’ve got a sudden urge, take me now, but I know he’d just be confused, wonder what had got into me and if I was OK and the moment would be lost. So I just cuddle into his broad back and try to sleep.
8
Isabel is sitting at a table by the window, nose in a paperback. She looks so exactly like, well, like Isabel, that I almost burst into tears as I rush across the café to greet her. We haven’t set eyes on each other for nearly a month and, as I get her in a bear hug, I realize just how much I’ve missed my friend. We’ve talked on the phone, of course, but with Alex staying at ours for all that time we got out of the habit of inviting her round. The intensity with which she returns my embrace and the fact that she won’t let go even when I’ve clearly relaxed my arms tells me that she’s missed me too. We eventually break apart, ignoring the stares of a weasely-looking young man in a nylon suit, who I think is hoping he’s about to see a live stage show of Emmanuelle.
‘So,’ she says as I sit down. ‘How have you been?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Well, work’s a bit…’ I realize that I can’t even begin to explain the whole story so I witter on aimlessly. Eventually Isabel asks the question she always asks.
‘So, how’s Alex? Is he OK?’ she asks.
I’ve agonized about this. On the one hand Isabel will be horrified and hurt to discover that Alex is already seeing someone else. On the other, the fact that it’s Lorna might even amuse her. I know that someone will tell her once the grapevine moves into action and I decide that it’s better if that someone is me. I leave out the part about Alex making a pass at me obviously. I want her to take him back if he ever sees sense and she’s hardly going to do that if she thinks he’s that disloyal.
‘He’s obviously doing it just to prove some kind of a point,’ I say, although it’s hard to justify what point without telling her what I really think. ‘To himself, I mean. That he was right to leave or something. God knows.’
Luckily my instincts were right and the pain is outweighed by the comedy value. Isabel manages a smile.
‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘maybe he likes her.’
‘But this is Lorna,’ I say, my voice rising an octave. ‘He can’t really like her.’
‘Oh God, do you think he’s calling it the bean yet?’
‘And that’s another thing. He nearly told her that story. I mean I have to work with her. What if he tells her and then she tells Joshua or Melanie…’
Isabel laughs. ‘I doubt she’d want to admit to it to anyone.’
The conversation slows to a halt for a moment. Isabel looks at me.
‘Rebecca,’ she says hesitantly. ‘Why do you think he left? Really?’
‘I have no idea,’ I say. I’m not about to tell her that he now claims he never really loved her after all. ‘I always thought you seemed so happy.’
She sighs. ‘I don’t think it was ever as good as you thought it was. Not for years, anyway. We argued all the time when we were on our own. But don’t all couples? About money, mostly. Him getting a job…’
‘But… I always thought… I mean, you do OK, don’t you?’ I ask. ‘You’re doing something you love and I guess he just wanted to try and do something he loves too. And when you had the girls, I mean, I was always so envious of you that you could just go back to work knowing he was happy to stay with them.’
‘I didn’t want to go back to work, though,’ she says, and a look of irritation passes over her face. ‘I wanted to stay at home and do the new-mother thing. But even then he refused to think about looking for a job.’
I’m shocked. I had no idea. It had all seemed like such a perfect twenty-first-century solution to me.
‘I cried all day every day in the office,’ she’s saying. ‘But Alex insisted that if he got another job it would be a slippery slope and then he’d never have any time to do any writing.’
‘Gosh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realize.’
Isabel is on a roll. ‘And, to be honest, I have no idea when the last time he actually wrote something was.’
‘I thought you loved your work,’ I say, rather lamely.
‘I do. But I would have liked to opt out for a while. Or I’d like to have been able to be part time so at least I could spend some time with my daughters while they were little. Tell me,’ she says, ‘do you think Alex is a good writer? I mean, you read something of his once. Do you think he’s ever going to become the next Alan Bennett?’
I blush. I don’t want to be too disloyal to Alex but she’s got a point.
‘I guess not,’ I say. ‘No.’
‘He’s been trying for twelve years. And at no point during that time did he even think, Well, maybe I could work part time, do my bit for the family, and write on my days off. Because he never cared that much. It was all about him having a nice life, pottering around all day and chatting up the mums on the school run.’
I’m about to say that doesn’t sound like Alex when I realize that, of course, it does, so I keep my mouth shut.
‘The whole writing thing is like a diversionary tactic. If he says that that’s what he’s doing, then no one questions why he hasn’t got a job. No one’s got the faintest idea whether he ever actually writes anything or not. He can play the tortured artist. But even with all that I never thought about leaving. We were in it together. We’d promised. And I loved him.’
‘Why did you never tell me any of this?’ I say, irrationally hurt that she hasn’t confided in me.
‘Because,’ she says, ‘you know, you always thought it was all so perfect, the four of us. You were always saying how amazing it was how it had all worked out. I don’t know. I didn’t want to be the one to disillusion you, I guess.’
She’s right. I did always marvel at our luck, that the four of us had found each other. We were a perfect unit, like those two sets of Siamese twins who happened to fall in love in Russia or somewhere.
I try and take this all in for a moment. Isabel sips her coffee and looks at me, willing me to understand.
‘I’m so sorry, Izz,’ I say. ‘If I’d have known… Well, actually, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d have known. Tried to convince you that it was all in your head, maybe, that nothing was really wrong. That would have been helpful.’
She laughs. ‘You probably would have succeeded. You can be very persuasive when you get a sulk on. And he’d still have left.’
I feel like we’ve exhausted the topic for now. There’s so much more I want to ask her, but I think it’d be pushing my luck so I change the subject.
‘How are the girls doing?’
‘Oh, you know,’ she says. ‘They’re miserable. They can’t understand why he’s done it.’
We make plans to get the kids together so that the twins can engage in a bit of William baiting, which will cheer them up. There’s a big old elephant in the room, which only I can see, which is Alex’s declaration of love to me. I wonder briefly whether knowing that about Alex might actually help her in some way. Make her see that he’s not worth pining over. But it’s not worth the risk. And, besides, if I tell her, then I’ll have to tell Dan and I don’t see how that would be beneficial to anybody. Uncomfortable as I am with keeping a secret from him – beyond hiding his Christmas and birthday presents I’m not sure I ever have done – in this instance I know that it’s the right thing to do. In Dan’s case ignorance is bliss.
Back in the office Lorna looks at her watch as I walk in.
‘I thought you were coming back at one thirty,’ she says for the benefit of Melanie, who is also in the room. It is now one thirty-four, by the way. I am four minutes late. Arrest me.
‘I’m meant to be meeting Alex,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if it’s worth it now.’
‘Tell you what,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you come back at twenty to three. It’s really no problem. Is it Melanie?’
‘What? Oh no,’ Melanie says. ‘Just work it out between you, so long as everything gets done.’
‘There,’ I say to a sulky-looking Lorna. ‘Crisis averted.’
Over dinner I tell Dan that I had lunch with Isabel, but I skirt around what she told me about the state of their marriage. I’ll save that for later, once the kids are out of the way.
‘Did she say anything about Nicola and Natalie?’ William asks, fish finger poised in front of his mouth, little finger aloft like a duchess with a tea cup. I smile at him.
‘She said they’re fine. But they’re sad they haven’t seen you for a while so I thought we might go over there at the weekend.’
The way his face lights up you’d think I’d told him he’d won the Nobel Prize.
‘Excellent,’ he says.
Zoe looks at him. ‘God, you’re sad,’ she says, but he’s too happy to retaliate.
9
Somehow in the chaos of everything that’s been going on I’d forgotten about IT. The holiday. Every year since I can’t remember when, we have all gone on holiday together. Rebecca and Daniel, Alex and Isabel and then, as they arrived, the four kids. In the summer we go away in our couples like normal people and the rest of the time we hang around each other’s roof terraces and gardens and local parks. But the autumn half term has become our time. The group. We book ahead, getting together for an evening in the early summer to argue about where it’ll be this year. We’ve done Madeira and Lanzarote, Crete and Rhodes, Center Parcs and Euro Disney.
This year, on an evening in late May, we decided on the Amalfi Coast, where it should be warm though not hot and where we could force some culture down our children’s throats and then get pissed on cheap red wine in the evenings. Cleverly we booked it there and then. Six nights in Sorrento. In the subsequent fighting over who was getting to keep the house and the dog, no one has even thought to argue about who gets the holiday. We’ve all forgotten. At least, that is, until one night when I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that we have got to cancel it. Now. While we can still get some of our money back. Before it just becomes accepted that we’re going. Or at least, some of us are.