Chapter Thirteen

I get Alice installed by the Aga with a strong cup of tea and a HobNob, by which time she’s calm enough to tell me what’s gone down back in London. She looks so hunched up and shivery: it’s such a relief to love someone without the need to exterminate the feeling as soon as it pokes its head over the parapet.

‘So you set off on Sunday, and I asked him if he just wanted to spend the week at ours. You know, I hate it when you’re away, so I thought I’d try and make the best of it. And it’s half term and everything so I thought we’d be able to have breakfast together, and morning sex and –’

I jump in before I’m overwhelmed by an image of a naked, tumescent Richard.

‘I get the picture. What did he say?’

‘He insisted I had to go and stay with him in that poky little flat over the off-licence. So I said it didn’t make any sense when we’ve got a whole house, but he said that it was easier for him with work and that he sleeps better in his own bed.’

‘We’re only five minutes away from his stupid shop.’

What’s happened to her? Alice is no shrinking violet, but he’s somehow managed to rob her of all her chutzpah.

‘I know, I know. But I just couldn’t be bothered having the fight. So I went round there on Monday night with a big bag, and he starts clucking.’

‘Clucking?’

‘Yes, literally clucking. He was going on about how I’m nesting, like I’m trying to move in by stealth or something. So I got a bit arsy and said that I loved living with you so he had nothing to worry about. And then he sort of implied it was a bit freaky that we were living together at thirty-two, which really pissed me off. And then he said he didn’t think you liked him.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’

She bats me away.

‘No, it’s not your fault. I said you thought he was great, and then he went downstairs to sell White Lightning to tramps –’

‘He doesn’t really sell White Lightning does he?’

‘No,’ says Alice, giggling for the first time. ‘I’d love to see him giving it the hard sell though. “Wonderful floral top notes, crisp, even finish.” Then he spent ages after closing lugging bottles around the cellar, like he didn’t want to see me. And I’d put on a really sexy nightie to try and perk things up, but by the time he got upstairs I’d fallen asleep. Saturday was so late and horrible…’ She casts me a look, telling me how much she’s brooded about our cross words. I smile back, trying to convey to her that it’s irrelevant. ‘So he wakes me up, clattering round the bedroom, and maybe I’m a bit grumpy but it’s only because I was disappointed, and then he totally flipped out.’

‘Flipped out how?’

‘Oh, he was all like “I need my space”, as though I’m Jenna, planning our wedding after one hand-job and a Polo mint. So I said, if you don’t want me to be here I’ll just go, but it was one in the morning. I never thought he’d say yes, but he was like “Fine”, in this really hard, horrible voice.’ Alice gives way to a sob. ‘I just felt so humiliated, Lulu.’

I put my arms round her. ‘I know it’s a cliché, but it really is his loss.’

‘Oh God, am I actually becoming Jenna? I mean, I love her and everything, but that’s just what we say to her every time she’s made a total tit of herself.’

‘You will never be Jenna,’ I tell her emphatically. ‘So did you just walk home in the middle of the night?’

‘Yeah, I was left packing up all my stuff while he watched me. I kept saying “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this”, and he was all like “I didn’t ask you to go”. Which he didn’t, to be fair, it was my suggestion.’

‘To be fair! Alice, he’s behaved like a total bastard.’

‘Yeah, I suppose, but I don’t think he really wanted me to leave.’

Oh no, she’s not wavering is she?

‘How so?’

‘Well, when I got to the door he started telling me to come back, but he’d let me get that far so I wasn’t going to back down. He was shouting down the street after me, but I just refused to turn round.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Then he kept calling me, but I wouldn’t pick up, so then he sent me all these horrible texts.’

She shakily passes over her phone.

reads the first one – almost reasonable. But by text five Richard’s showing his true colours:

This is followed by

‘What a pompous dickhead. Better you know now more like. At least if you know it’s over you can start moving on.’

‘But now he’s saying he didn’t mean it and that we shouldn’t throw it away.’

‘Er, hello. Has he read his own texts?’

She looks at me pleadingly. ‘I know, I know. But he says he sent them in the heat of the moment. He’s rung me about twenty times, begging me to give him another chance.’

‘The heat of the moment? Who goes to the trouble of finding a colon in the heat of the moment? You have to press about five keys to get into the punctuation section. It’s premeditated, case closed.’

Alice pretends to concede, but I can tell that she’s conflicted. I start to feel frustrated with her until I remember that people in affairs shouldn’t throw stones.

‘What is it that you like so much about him?’ I ask as gently as possible, trying to bypass her defences.

‘I don’t know,’ she says, looking up tearily. ‘He makes me feel safe, in a funny kind of a way. He’s so sure of himself. And he’s determined: it takes a lot of guts to set up a business. And he’s clever too – you know he’s got a first in Ancient History?’

I make an impressed face and leave it alone, having decided the best strategy is to play the long game. If I can keep her out of his airspace for a few days, she’ll hopefully start to realize how much better life is without him – although having her by my side brings a whole new raft of problems that I can’t quite bear to take on board right now.

Except of course I’m forced to, as Alice can’t wait to tell me how wonderful Bea is and how adorable she and Charles’s progeny are. She apparently overheard Bea teaching Theo to say ‘Last Carriage to Avon’ and struck up conversation. Being a primary school teacher, she’s a natural with kids, so spent the rest of the journey colouring with Theo and Max and gaily chatting to Bea, little knowing what treacherous waters she was entering. If only Gareth and I hadn’t had our stupid spat I would at least have had some warning. He told her today was a late start and that if she wanted to come up it was the perfect opportunity.

‘He reckoned you seemed really distracted and a bit sad. And then I started thinking you were feeling horrible about that stupid row so I was desperate to come and make it better.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, wishing I wasn’t so muddled. ‘It’s great you’re here.’ Which it kind of is, but for the fact I’m living a lie. ‘I’m gonna have to go to work soon though. I’m sorry to leave you all on your lonesome immediately.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, I’m going to go round and visit Bea. I’m so lucky I’ve got another “Last Carriage” widow to hang out with. How perfect is that?’

Oh. My. God.

‘She really wants to meet you. Apparently Charles says you’re brilliant. I think she wants to try and have us round for supper on Friday or something.’

I shoot across the room, busying myself with the kettle. ‘More tea?’ I ask in a strangulated voice while Alice continues to babble on about her new gal pal. By the time I leave I’ve discovered that Bea is hilariously funny, a devoted mother and loves ‘Sex and the City’ almost as much as us. The perfect foundation for a beautiful friendship – but for the fact that I’m in love with her husband.

I bomb through the countryside, desperate to offload my frustration on him. I’m still furious with him, and yet I also feel like he’s my port in the storm. I rap on his trailer door and he snatches it open, pale and stressed.

‘Can I just tell you again how sorry I am?’

‘You can, but it won’t make any of it any better.’

‘We’re just going to have to bluff it out, Lulu, that’s all we can do.’

‘It’s all right for you, you’re a bloody actor. You’re asking me to lie to the person I’m closest to in the whole world.’ I crumple into a seat. ‘I just feel like such a horrible person. If Bea’s as lovely as my sister says, I can’t bear what I’ve done to her.’

‘What I’ve done is way worse, but you know as well as I do how hard we tried to turn away.’ He gently strokes the back of my hand as I struggle to summon up the strength to yank it away. ‘It felt unstoppable, at least to me.’

‘Me too,’ I say, knowing I should lie. ‘But the holiday romance is well and truly over, isn’t it?’

He looks at me imploringly. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s got to be. I know what you’re saying, but it seems so wrong that it has to end so abruptly, so horribly.’

‘But there’s no other way for it to end, is there?’ I snap back, voice wobbling. ‘We’re hardly going to walk off into the sunset together.’

‘Hey, come here,’ he says, as I finally give way to a sob. ‘Please let me at least give you a hug.’

He wraps himself around me and I drink in the smell of him, wishing that the comfort it offers wasn’t so necessarily fleeting. I reach up and stroke his face, but when he goes to kiss me I pull away.

‘Don’t, just don’t. I need to leave.’

‘Darling…’

But I’m gone, door slamming behind me. How I wish I could shut the emotional doors so decisively, but even if it were that easy, our lives are inextricably connected for the rest of the week. How the hell am I going to get to the other side unscathed?