by Jane Fallon
She’s looking good. Better than she has in weeks, actually, and it’s not long before I find out why.
‘I’ve met someone,’ she says breathlessly, almost as soon as we’ve sat down. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you, but I thought I should wait until I’d seen him a couple of times, you know, just in case it was a non-starter.’
I’m rendered speechless momentarily. She’s met someone already? How did that happen? I always thought that your options would narrow dramatically as you hit your forties. All the decent people would be married or at the very least settled down. Those that would be left would be single for a reason – sociopaths or, God forbid, psychopaths. Mummy’s boys and ‘too scared to come out’ gays. But it seems I’m wrong. There are the newly divorced to contend with and the ‘missed the marriage boat because I was concentrating on my career’ brigade. A whole demographic I had never even realized existed.
Isabel’s new man is one of the recently separated, soon-to-be-divorced masses. They met, she tells me, at a parents’ evening at the girls’ school. He was queuing to see Miss Farley Evans, the year six form tutor; she was flapping around like a disorientated homing pigeon trying to find the table where Mr Leach, one of the year four tutors, had set up shop. He pointed her in the right direction. She said thank you and, because he was handsome and polite, flashed him her best grateful smile. He asked her whose mother she was and they fell into conversation.
‘Where was Alex?’ I interrupt. Alex may be many things, but he’s a good father and he never misses a parents’ evening.
‘Having some crisis with Lorna,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘He cried off at the last minute. In fact, it was right around the time they split up so I guess he does have an excuse.’
‘Mmm…’ I say, non-committal. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Is he OK by the way?’ she asks after a moment, and I shrug and say, ‘Who cares?’ which makes her laugh again.
‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘Back to your new man. What’s his name?’
‘Luke. He’s in the middle of a divorce, hence being at parents’ night on his own because they can’t bear to be in the same room yet, apparently. He has a ten-year-old son and he works in finance doing something I don’t understand.’
‘And then what?’ I ask. ‘Let me live vicariously through you. He told you where to find Mr Leach, then what happened?’
‘He asked me if I fancied a drink afterwards and I said yes.’
‘Really?’
I have never known Isabel single. Well, only for a couple of months and not for at least twenty years. I can’t imagine her saying yes to a drink with some random man she’s only just met.
‘I figured what was the worst that could happen? The teachers at the school all seemed to know him. If he’d turned out to be a maniac, he would have had trouble covering his tracks. So we went to this pub down by the canal and we had a good time. Then he asked me to see him again and I said OK.’
‘And?’ I say expectantly.
‘And the second time we went for a meal. La Petite Maison.’
‘I’ve always wanted to go there,’ I say enviously. ‘Then what?’
She looks a bit coy, not a look I’m used to on Isabel.
‘Then… nothing.’
I shriek and a couple at the nearby table look round and give me disapproving stares. ‘No! You didn’t!’
‘Shh,’ she says, looking over at them as if they know what we’ve been talking about. ‘No, we didn’t. But he did kiss me and then we sat in his car for a bit. You know…’
‘Izz!’ I say. ‘The second time you met him? And I’m assuming this is the first person since Alex?’
‘Of course,’ she says, indignant.
‘What was it like? No, I can’t ask you that, you’re my friend. Don’t tell me.’
‘I wasn’t going to. Anyway, then he took me home and that was that.’
‘So, next time…? I assume there is going to be a next time?’
She smiles. ‘I’m seeing him again on Monday. He has to go away tomorrow on business for a few days. He goes away a lot for business. Switzerland and Brussels mainly. And New York. I’m hoping that at the very least I’ll get a few good holidays out of it.’
‘So, on Monday?’
‘On Monday we’re going out to eat again, and then I am hoping that he’ll come round to mine, yes.’
‘Oh my God! Well, good for you,’ I say, and I mean it. This is a good sign. If Isabel is seeing a new man, then there’s no way she’s still thinking about getting back with Alex.
‘I’ll keep you posted,’ she says. ‘Although it’ll probably all be over next time I see you. He’ll have got bored or met someone else…’
‘Think positive,’ I say. ‘There have to be some good men out there and Luke might just be one of them.’
‘I thought Alex was,’ Isabel says, looking deep into her glass. ‘I wouldn’t have stayed married to him for so long if I didn’t. If I hadn’t thought we could make it all all right somehow. If I hadn’t thought he wanted to make it work as much as I did.’
‘Yeah, well, we all make mistakes,’ I say, and I pick up our glasses and head to the bar to get us another drink.
I’m a little bit the worse for wear, I realize, as I weave up the Caledonian Road from the tube. Isabel and I have always done this about once a month, left the kids with their fathers and blown off steam together in the pub for a couple of hours. Usually I stop after three glasses because I can’t trust myself to get home in one piece otherwise, and because I am trying these days, in a half-hearted fashion, to stick to the recommended government guidelines for unit consumption. But, tonight, I allowed myself one extra because there was so much to catch up on. I’m not exactly drunk, but I don’t feel entirely clear headed either. Dan will have fed the kids and corralled them into bed by now, so all I have to do is stay awake and keep him company watching TV for an hour or so, until it’s a respectable time to turn in. I haven’t eaten but I’m past caring. I might just have another glass of wine, I think daringly, as I round the corner into our street.
I let myself in and head straight for the living room, treading carefully so as not to wake the children. Dan always finds it funny when I’ve had a few too many so I don’t even try to disguise the fact when I walk in. Tonight, though, I realize, sobering up pretty quickly, he doesn’t seem too amused.
I stop in my tracks when I see his expression, which is, to say the least, serious.
‘Are you OK?’ I say.
‘Lorna was here.’
‘Lorna?’
‘She said she had something to tell me. I think she was disappointed that you weren’t here to witness it.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘What did she have to tell you?’ Actually I have a pretty good idea, but the way Lorna is acting at the minute it could be anything. Dan smiles a weak smile at me. ‘She was trying to convince me that you’d told her Alex was in love with you. That he’d made a pass at you one night a couple of months ago, right before he asked her out.’
He looks at me, willing me to say it’s not true. I can’t.
‘Dan… he did…’ I say, reluctantly.
Dan looks so confused I have to go over and hug him. ‘Alex…?’ he says, pulling away.
I nod. ‘He was drunk, he didn’t know what he was saying. I was going to tell you, but I figured it was just the drink talking and that he’d be feeling terrible about it once he’d sobered up. I didn’t want to cause any problems between you, that’s all. I thought it was best all round to just pretend it never happened.’
‘Except that you thought it was meaningful enough to tell Lorna about it? She says you told her Alex couldn’t really be in love with her because he was in love with you.’
He’s right. I did say exactly that to Lorna and I’m not going to lie about it now to Dan, but maybe I can protect him from the whole truth.
‘I did say that to her, I’m afraid. I was angry. She’s been being awful to me at work and I guess I just s
napped. I just wanted to hurt her.’ Even as I say this I’m aware that it sounds so pitiful, so unconvincing.
‘It’s just,’ he says, ‘that it makes me feel a bit stupid, you know. Like you all had a secret. Like I was the only one who didn’t know that my best friend was trying to sleep with my wife.’
‘I’m sorry, Dan. I thought not telling you was the right thing to do. I didn’t want to hurt you.’
He takes a long sip of his drink. ‘Could you just tell me exactly what happened now? Don’t spare me. Let me be the judge of what I am and what I’m not able to deal with, OK?’
‘OK,’ I say, and I tell him the whole story of that night, leaving nothing out, not even the fact that Alex asked me to leave him. When I get to that part Dan’s face takes on an expression I have never seen before. Part anger, part devastation. I hesitate, unsure whether to continue. I put my hand on his arm.
‘Carry on,’ he says. ‘What happened next?’
I’m thankful that I can be completely, one hundred per cent honest about my reaction to Alex’s proposition. I tell Dan word for word what I said, at least as far as I can remember. The look of relief that passes across his face gives away the fact that he was terrified that I might have responded, that something might actually have happened between Alex and me. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he might think that. That he hadn’t just been sitting here all evening worrying about his best friend betraying him but his wife too. I reassure him again about the unequivocal nature of my rejection. ‘Not,’ I say, ‘for a single second. Not even for the tiniest fraction of a second.’
I put my hand on his knee and he picks it up with one of his. ‘Well, that’s something,’ he says. ‘And how did he react to that?’
‘Like I said, he was drunk and I guess he felt humiliated. I told him to go home. Do you remember? You wondered where he was in the morning.’
Dan nods and then he looks right at me. ‘And that was really it? There’s been nothing since?’
I could keep the rest to myself. That had been what I was intending to do at first and, in retrospect, I should probably have stuck to my plan but then Dan notices my slight hesitation and says, ‘The truth, Rebecca. Please,’ and it hits me like a bolt of lightning that my loyalty is to him and him alone.
‘No…’ I begin hesitantly. ‘There’s one more thing. He called me the next day and asked me to meet him for lunch so that we could talk about it.’ I stop for a moment as I see Dan’s face turn pale.
‘So this time he was stone-cold sober?’ he says, and I nod. ‘I guess so. I had to agree only because I couldn’t talk to him on the phone in front of Lorna and I needed to make sure that he’d got the message loud and clear. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he says, anxious not to make me feel bad. ‘He put you in a difficult position.’
‘So I met him at YO! Sushi. Because it’s open and public, no whispering in corners. Repeated what I’d said the night before about there being no chance and me not being interested. I was angry with him for what he was trying to do to you. We argued, we didn’t even eat, I just left.’
‘And he was still trying to tell you that he was in love with you? Still trying to persuade you to leave me and go off with him?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry, Dan.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ he says, and he kisses me to show me that he means it. ‘It must have been awful for you.’
‘It was, to be honest. I hated having a secret from you. I just thought, well, your friendship with Alex is so important to you. I didn’t want to be the one who ruined it.’
‘You haven’t. He has.’ Dan’s expression has hardened and for a moment I allow myself to wonder what he might do, what might happen next.
‘And that’s why you were so cynical about him and Lorna?’
I nod. ‘He called and asked her out right after we had that lunch. It just felt like a childish way to get back at me. He knew how much I disliked her. And then five minutes later we’re meant to believe they’re in love.’
‘I feel sorry for her,’ Dan says, ever reasonable, ‘if he’s used her like that. Don’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ I say unconvincingly. ‘It’s complicated. The minute I start to think she might not be that bad she does something to make me hate her again.’
‘Alex is the only villain in all this.’
‘Shit, Dan. I really am sorry. I should just have come out and told you straight away.’
‘Is this why he left Isabel, do you think? Because of how he felt about you?’
‘I think so. At least, that’s what he said. I haven’t told her either,’ I add hurriedly. I don’t want him to think I’ve been talking about this behind his back and neither do I want him to bring it up with Izz. ‘I think it’s much better all round if she never knows.’
‘I agree,’ he says.
‘What are you going to do?’ I say.
‘What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to fucking kill him.’ He looks at his watch. I look at mine. It’s ten to eleven. ‘Now?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Now I’m going to ring him like everything’s normal and I’m going to invite him round tomorrow night. Then I’m going to kill him.’
‘Figuratively,’ I say. ‘With words, I mean. Not literally.’
‘Figuratively,’ he says, and laughs grimly. ‘Although literally is tempting.’
16
Now that the truth is out there, messy and complicated though it is, I actually feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Whatever Lorna felt she was going to achieve by telling Dan what I’d told her has backfired in a big way. She must have thought that Dan would be angry with me for keeping a secret from him. I can’t believe that she did it to hurt him; he’s never been anything but friendly and welcoming to her. She’s mean, but she’s not that mean. Maybe she wasn’t thinking at all, she just wanted to get it off her chest. Throw it out there and see what the fallout would be. Or, most likely, she wanted to wound Alex. Destroy the one thing he supposedly valued above all else although, of course, that’s debatable. She probably didn’t even consider the other casualties that might occur.
I don’t say anything to her when I see her at work the next day. I won’t give her the satisfaction. We do find ourselves having to speak at one point, though, which is a shame because it was all going so well on the mutual ignoring front. While Lorna is on the other line I take a call from one of the script editors on Reddington Road asking why Craig hasn’t shown up at their story conference. I have no idea so I put them on hold and I quickly dial Craig’s mobile. Luckily he answers so I ask him how far away he is; what time he thinks he will get there.
‘What are you talking about?’ he says. I can hear loud music in the background and the occasional clanking of metal.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at the gym,’ he says. ‘What about Reddington Road?’
‘The story conference,’ I say. ‘They called last week about booking you for a real episode.’
‘You are joking?’ Craig says. ‘Nobody told me. Are you telling me I’m meant to be there now?’ His voice is getting a little high pitched. I don’t know what to do now. Unless Craig has some kind of degenerative memory-loss disease, clearly Lorna has fucked up and failed to tell him about the most momentous event in his short career so far. I need to do some damage control.
‘Craig,’ I say. ‘Don’t panic. There must have been some kind of mix up. I’ll get to the bottom of it and call you back. But the good news is that Reddington Road want you to write an actual episode. That’s great, isn’t it?’
‘I’d better not have missed a meeting,’ he says, panicked, despite my asking him not to be. ‘Not on my first job.’
‘Keep your phone on,’ I say. ‘I’ll find out what’s going on.’
Lorna is still on the phone so I get back on to the Reddington Road script editor and I tell her that Craig is really sick. That his girlfriend has just told me he’s hal
f delirious with the flu and that she didn’t realize his meeting was today otherwise she would have called to let everyone know. The editor is a little irritated still – ‘I had to stick my neck out to get them to take a chance on him,’ she says, but she’s reasonable enough to accept the excuse. I tell her that Lorna will call her as soon as she’s off the phone so she can figure something out.
I can’t hear voices as I approach Lorna’s closed office door so I wait for a moment before knocking and putting my head round. Maybe her call has ended in the twenty-five or so seconds it has taken me to walk here from reception. I open the door and see Lorna sitting staring off into space, the phone’s handset lying on the table in front of her. She jumps when she notices me then picks up the phone and puts it back on its cradle nonchalantly as if sitting in your office with the phone off the hook all morning is an acceptable way to operate.
‘You should knock,’ she says.
‘I did,’ I say. There really isn’t time for us to get into an argument, though, so I add, ‘I guess you didn’t hear me.’
‘Well?’ she says. ‘What’s so important?’
‘Reddington Road have just been on the phone. They want to know why Craig hasn’t shown up at the story conference.’
A look of total panic flickers across her face quickly before she can paper over it and, I have to admit, I’m relieved. There was a moment there when it crossed my mind that maybe I was the one at fault here. Could I have forgotten to give Lorna the original message about Craig? I remember speaking to them and I feel pretty sure I remember sending her an email about it, but there are so many messages to be passed on it’s hard to be certain. Thankfully her look confirms that I did. She’s not about to take the blame, though.
‘What story conference?’ she says, and she tries to look like she’s getting angry at me rather than like she knows she’s messed up.
‘Reddington Road,’ I say calmly. ‘Don’t you remember? They called last week and offered Craig an episode. I emailed you about it.’
