by Jane Fallon
I kick the case in frustration.
I can’t just sit here and wait for one or other of them to come home. What if she arrives first and she’s a psycho? What if they turn up with friends in tow? (Some of our coupley friends, even? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Does everyone know? Am I a laughing stock?) I’m not sure I can face the humiliation. And, besides, I don’t want my own drama to overshadow the reason I’m here. To make sure my best friend has the night of her life.
I decide to phone my brother, Chris. He always knows what to do in any kind of sticky situation. Not to mention the fact that I’m confident he’s one person who won’t already be talking about my errant boyfriend behind my back.
‘Hey, Sis,’ he says when he picks up. He always calls me Sis. It started as a joke because we were both watching the same awful drama on TV years ago and got obsessed with the way the writers would keep trying to remind us of everyone’s relationships through the dialogue. My favourite line – ‘You know your older brother, Martin, the one who’s an estate agent down in Dorking and lives with his wife, Sue, in Reigate?’ We started mimicking it whenever we spoke – ‘Could you ask our mum, Margaret, who’s married to our dad, Graham …’ ‘Hello, younger brother, Chris, have you seen our older sister, Nichola, or her husband, Mark, lately?’ You had to be there really, but it made us laugh at the time. Anyway, ‘Sis’ stuck.
‘Why are you ringing me at half past five in the morning? Is everything okay?’
‘I’m not in New York. I’m in London, remember?’
‘Of course! The big surprise. How is it? Are you having a lovely time?’
‘Not really,’ I say. I lie back on the bed, stare at the ceiling.
‘What’s up? … You still there, Amy?’
I bring him up to date as succinctly as I can. When I get to the part about the suitcase of clothes, I hear him say, ‘What the fuck?’ so loudly that his partner, Lewis, appears in the background, asking if everything’s all right. Chris puts me on speaker.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I have no idea either. Hi, Lew.’
‘You’re up late. Or early. One or the other.’
I listen as Chris tries to fill him in.
‘There has to be a logical explanation,’ Lewis says, once he’s up to speed. ‘Something obvious that we’re all missing.’
‘He’s having an affair,’ I say morosely.
‘Some other explanation, I mean. His sister?’
‘He doesn’t have a sister.’
‘I don’t know … cousin or something?’ Chris tries. ‘Old friend?’
‘Then why wouldn’t he have told me?’
‘Maybe he hasn’t had a chance. Maybe she only showed up last night and it was some kind of emergency.’
‘No one’s slept in the spare bed.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ Lew says helpfully.
I hear myself sigh.
‘Don’t. He won’t.’ Chris says.
‘No, you can. Really.’
‘Do you have any idea who it might be?’ Chris again.
‘None. I need to find out.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes! Jesus. What if it’s someone I know? Someone he works with. I can’t just suspect every woman he’s ever been in contact with. I mean, how will I ever know who I can trust?’
‘Or it could just as well be someone you’ve never met –’ Lew says.
Chris interrupts him. ‘– And it was only meant to be a fling – not that that excuses either of them – but it got a bit more serious …’
‘… But they’re still intending to end it all before … you know …’
‘… And, in their minds, what you don’t know can’t hurt you …’
‘… Or he’s been desperate to tell you, eaten up with the guilt, but he knew he had to do it face to face …’
‘… Yes! He’ll probably confess everything tonight. Not that that … well, you know, it’s still awful …’
I listen to them talking over each other for a moment. What they’re saying does make sense.
‘What are you going to do?’ Chris asks finally.
‘I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling you. I mean, if I’m here when he gets home from work, he’s going to know I’ve found out, obviously.’
‘So you’ll get your answers.’
‘But then I’ll never know if he would have told me if I hadn’t outed him. And what if he just refuses to tell me who she is? And then we’ve got to get through Mel’s party as if nothing’s wrong.’
There’s silence for a moment.
‘How long are you here for?’
‘A week. I don’t know how I’m going to get through it, though.’
‘Here’s what I think,’ Chris says. I can hear a seagull shrieking and I wonder if they’re out in their little sunny Devon garden. I can picture them sitting at the wooden table by their back door, Chris’s dark-brown head and Lew’s tanned bald one leaning over the phone. Chris has the same habit as me of worrying at his earlobes when he’s concentrating, and I imagine him doing it now. ‘Text him and tell him you’re coming home tonight. Then get out of the flat and watch to see what happens. Chances are, whoever she is, she’ll turn up to retrieve her stuff. At least then you’ll get a look at her. If he makes a big confession tonight, then you’ll just have to go to the party on your own and tell Mel he’s ill. You’re a good actress, you can do it. And if he doesn’t, then pretend everything’s fine. Let Mel have her big night. Then hit him with it on Sunday. Or … does he know how long you’re staying?’
‘He doesn’t even know I’m here yet, remember.’
‘Perfect,’ Chris says. ‘Tell him you’re leaving on Sunday morning. Then you can go to Mel’s, cry on her shoulder for a few days and forget about Jack altogether.’
‘What? Not even try and work it out?’
‘What’s to work out?’ Lew chips in. ‘Whether he ’fesses up or not, he’s been seeing someone on the side.’
‘Shit.’
‘Or you could come and spend the week down here?’ Chris says.
It’s tempting. Chris has almost Jedi-like powers in terms of making people feel calm and rested. I always thought he should train as a therapist. He preferred to have a job he could leave behind on a Friday night, he said. He knew that he’d end up carrying people’s problems with him all weekend. Phoning them up and offering them free sessions so he could help them feel better. But it still became his unofficial role in life. Whenever any of his friends is having a crisis, the first thing they do is call him.
It doesn’t make sense for me to hide down there now, though. I need Mel’s ‘fuck ’em all’ take on things if I’m going to get through this.
‘No. Thanks, though. I’ll be fine. It’s a plan. Oh, and there’s another thing, I’m getting killed off.’
‘No! Damn, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I don’t think it’s any reflection on me, it just makes for a good storyline. Don’t tell Mum and Dad yet, though, I can’t face it. Or anyone else. It’s top secret till it airs.’
‘Of course not. So what are you going to do?’
‘Well, until just now, I was going to move home, start planning my wedding and get on with my life. Now, I have no idea.’
‘Okay, maybe I will kill him,’ Lew says.
Chris chips in. ‘Come down when you get back. You can hide down here and lick your wounds for as long as you want.’
I promise to ring them again as soon as I have any more intel. Then I lean back against the pillows, feeling as if the bottom has gone out of my world. I always wondered what people meant when they said that, but now I know. I feel as if a huge chasm has opened up underneath me and I need to grasp on to something tightly to stop myself from falling into oblivion. Oscar slinks in and jumps up next to me, curling into my side. I sink my fingers into the soft fur on his tummy. Try not to think about some random woman attempting to ingratiate herself with him by sneaking him bits of his favourite cheese.
If I’m going to let Jack know that I’m coming home this evening, I need to get out of the way. But I can’t wander the streets with my giant case. In the end – after carefully rearranging my rival’s stuff so she won’t realize anyone’s been examining it – I drag my case to the hotel diagonally opposite our house and book myself into a single room. That’s how posh a hotel it is. It has single rooms with single beds. With hairdryers that are wired into the wall to stop you from stealing them. I think it’s aimed at lone travellers from struggling businesses. Or prostitutes and their clients renting by the hour. But it’s clean. If you don’t examine things too closely. Then I crawl into the small but comfy bed, drag the duvet over my face and, despite everything, I manage to cry myself to sleep.
3
I wake bleary-eyed I don’t know how much later. The first thing I notice is a folded-up ironing board screwed into the wall at the foot of the bed. I can’t remember installing that in my state-of-the-art Manhattan apartment. I look around, taking in the tiny TV (screwed to the wall), the kettle (wired in) radio alarm (ditto), and it all comes crashing back. I check the time on my phone. Twenty-five past twelve. I’ve slept for about an hour and a half.
I make myself a tinny-tasting coffee from a complimentary sachet (only two provided) with a sliver of milk from one of three tiny plastic capsules. Then I lie back down on the bed and try to process what’s going on. Jack is having an affair? Could that really be happening? We FaceTime practically every night, unless one of our work schedules makes the time difference a nightmare. I think back over the past few nights and try to remember if there were any tell-tale signs. Nothing. We’ve never been the type to be all lovey-dovey over the phone. Or in real life, for that matter. We both find that stuff a bit cringy. By which I don’t mean we don’t tell each other we love each other. We do. Always. We just say it in plain English, and in normal voices. Not like we’re suddenly five years old. Anyway, there’s been nothing that rang any alarm bells. Nothing that felt different. No stage whispers, no accidental eye flicks to whoever else was in the room. No abrupt ending of calls.
Before I can think too much about what I’m doing, I send Jack a text.
Guess what??? I’m coming home for the weekend!! I arrive late tonight. Flight gets in about half eight. Don’t tell Mel. Big surprise!!!! Call you later. Love you xxx
Almost immediately my phone rings with the distinctive FaceTime tone. I can’t answer, obviously, because he might wonder why I’ve suddenly got an ironing board mounted on my wall. I let it time out and then I call him back, audio only.
‘Sorry. Terrible reception.’
‘You’re really coming today? That’s fantastic!’
‘Yes!’ I say, in what I hope is my happiest voice. ‘I’m at the airport now, actually. We should board in a few minutes.’ I get up and force open the mud-spotted window of my room and traffic noise blasts in.
‘Do you want me to come and meet you?’
Shit. I should have thought this through. Jack likes to meet me at Heathrow. The first time, it didn’t even occur to me that he would be there, so I was halfway to the train before I noticed him huffing along beside me, half swamped by a mountain of flowers and balloons. We both cried, I remember. Me with happiness at seeing him, him probably because of exhaustion.
‘No! You know what I’d really like? I’ll jump in a cab and, if I ring you when I’m on my way, you could order an Indian. I’ve been fantasizing about mushroom balti and pilau rice.’
Jack laughs. He sounds like his usual relaxed self, not like I’ve sent him into a major panic. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
I try to laugh along, but it comes out a bit like a strangled cat. ‘No!’
‘I can’t wait to see you.’
‘You, too.’
‘I’d better … I’m about to go into a meeting. What time did you say your flight gets in again?’
‘Eight thirty. So I should get home for tennish. Half ten.’ I mentally curse myself for picking such a late flight, but I was trying to go for authenticity.
‘Result,’ he says.
‘You didn’t …’ I say, making an effort not to sound as if I’m asking a loaded question. ‘You hadn’t made plans, had you?’
‘Are you kidding? Like I wouldn’t cancel them. But no, this lonely saddo had no plans. Beyond a quick after-work drink. And now I’ve had a much better offer.’
I ring off, promising to call him as soon as I land. It’s so confusing. He sounded genuinely excited at the prospect of seeing me. Maybe I have this whole thing wrong. Maybe there really is an innocent explanation.
I’m suddenly starving. It seems ridiculous to go and buy something to eat when there’s a flat full of food that, by rights, should be mine across the road, but I don’t want to risk going back in there now. Jack will have got straight on the phone to her and I’m pretty sure she won’t be spending her lunch hour eating a sandwich at her desk now, not when she has tracks she needs to cover. I have a quick shower to wake me up and then walk up the road to Tesco Metro. By five past one I’m back sitting on a bench in the park opposite my flat, eating a tuna baguette. I’m far enough away and obscured by enough trees that no one would see me unless they were looking, but I still put a baseball cap over my dark (not to mention dirty) hair, just in case. Air travel does that to me. I get on a plane looking like a Silvikrin advert but by the time I get off you could stand a fork up in the grease. It’s a mystery.
It’s turned into a beautiful early-spring day and I share a crumb with a couple of mangy-looking pigeons, which turns out to be a mistake, because now they think we’re friends for life and they’re making me feel guilty about not just tossing them the whole thing. Eventually I do, just to get rid of them, but all that does is cause them to fight among themselves.
Of course, whoever she is, she could decide to come after work rather than in her lunch hour, although if it were me – not that it ever would be – I would want to get it over with as soon as I possibly could. Just to be on the safe side. Or she might not even have a job, or work shifts – that would mean she could show up at any point between now and half ten this evening. I have nothing better to do, though, I tell myself. I may as well sit here as anywhere.
At twenty-five past, just as I’m resigning myself to the fact that it might be a long wait, a taxi pulls up outside our door. I actually gasp out loud and fling my hand over my mouth, like an overacting heroine in a silent movie. I find myself looking around to check no one has heard me. Thankfully, everyone else is concentrating on eating their lunch or walking their dog, relieved to be away from their workplace for an hour’s fresh air.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to emerge. I have no idea what I’m going to do. Run over and accuse her? Demand that she gives me answers? Sing the chorus of ‘Jolene’ right in her face? Punch her and run away? All of the above?
The door opens. I can hear my heart beating. There’s a second’s pause and Jack climbs out. For some reason, I hadn’t even considered this an option. That he might be the one to hide the evidence. He looks so … Jack. Not like a man who has been living some kind of secret life. He’s never been what you would call classically good-looking, but a happy accident of individually imperfect features resulted in something very attractive. I’ve always thought so, anyway. His nose is a bit too long, his eyes a smidge too close together, his lips a little thin. The combination – along with the violet blue of his irises and the dark brown of his hair – gives him a kind of wolf-like quality. A sort of better-looking Baldwin brother. Without the anger-ma
nagement issues.
He’s obviously told the driver to wait because the cab doesn’t move, engine ticking over, meter running up. Jack runs up the steps to our front door. I pull my hat down over my face and allow myself to look at the upstairs window. From here, I can see the living-room bay and the spare bedroom. There are flat white sheers over both to preserve our privacy but I think I see one of them flap in a Jack-created draught as he – I imagine – runs around like a whirlwind, gathering up anything incriminating.
I know he can’t have long. He’s never been one for extended lunch breaks. He likes to be seen to be conscientious while all his colleagues are sinking glasses of red at the local bistro. Sure enough, the front door slams open and there he is again, suitcase in one hand, two carrier bags in another and half a dozen girly outfits on hangers slung over his shoulder. The taxi driver chooses just that moment to examine something fascinating on his fingernail, so Jack staggers down the steps alone, goes back up to pick up something he’s dropped, then wrestles with the car-door handle. I can practically hear him huffing with frustration. Safe in the knowledge that he’s not going to be expected to carry anything, the taxi driver springs to life and gets out and opens the door for him, and he half tumbles in, throwing the suitcase in front of him.
Despite everything, my overwhelming urge is to call out to him, to let him know I’m here. To hurtle across the street and throw myself into his arms.
It hits me like a ton of bricks that that is never going to happen again.
4
One. Two. Three.
I take a deep breath to steady my nerves and fling open the flat door.
I’ve spent the whole afternoon imagining this moment. I kept veering between wanting to be the reasonable one, to hear what he has to say without interruption and then tell him he needs to leave, at least until after the weekend, or to go in all guns blazing, pull the floor out from under him and not give him a chance to get his story straight. I want to know the truth. How it happened. When. Where. Above all, who.