On the way home I buy a bottle of Prosecco – dry January be damned – to celebrate Neeve’s vlog going viral. But Neeve doesn’t come home, and both Sofie and Kiara are in swotty mode and don’t want any. For a moment I contemplate opening the bottle anyway, but there’s a danger I might drink it all by myself. So I summon the willpower from the soles of my feet and manage to stick it at the back of the fridge. It’ll do for another time.
I’m upstairs, desultorily flinging things into my wheely case, when the doorbell rings. I flinch. Please, God, don’t let it be Hugh.
Down I go and, to my great surprise, it’s Steevie who’s standing on my doorstep. I goggle at her. She looks exactly as she always does: same little pixie face, same excellent haircut, same wantable coat. She’s the last person I expect to see on this miserable sleety Monday evening.
‘Oh!’ I’m stunned almost into silence. ‘… hi.’
‘Amy, I’m sorry.’ She sounds close to tears.
‘Aaah.’ I’m not sure I’m able for her. I feel exhausted. I seem to be tired all the time. ‘Um … come in.’
We go to the kitchen where I open a bottle of wine. Not the Prosecco, she doesn’t deserve that. But tea won’t do either, not for this.
She slides her coat on to the back of her chair, then squares her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ she repeats.
In the absence of knowing what to do, I take a hefty swig from my glass. Christ, that’s nice.
‘When Hugh went away.’ Steevie sounds like she’s rehearsed this. I have to admit I’m touched. She swallows about half of her wine and starts again. ‘When Hugh went, the way I’d felt when Lee first left, those feelings came flooding back, and it sent me a bit mental.’
I nod.
‘It felt good not being the only one to be humiliated. But when you wouldn’t bitch about him, I felt … I’m sorry, Amy, I felt betrayed.’
I remember now how I’d wanted Hugh’s dick to turn green and drop off after I’d seen those photos on Facebook. But all that rage had dissipated – right around the time I starting doing the sexing with Josh. I don’t want to tell Steevie any of this. Not yet. We’ve been friends for a long time and I hate being on the outs with her. It took a lot of guts for her to show up here without advance warning but I can’t forget that she ghosted me for two months, defriended me and turned Jana against me.
‘So he’s back?’ she says.
‘We’re not together.’
‘But, like, what are you planning?’
I’m confused. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Key his car? Cut one leg off all his trousers?’
‘Ah …’ Is this a joke?
‘I heard a really good one!’ She’s suddenly animated. ‘This woman caught her husband cheating and threw every left shoe he owned into the Thames. And he, like, loved his shoes – he collected Nikes. So he was left with dozens of single trainers that were no good to him.’
I have a think. ‘I could do something with his music collection, maybe snap all of his vinyl records in half.’
‘He’s so precious about his vinyl, right?’ Now she’s laughing. ‘He’d hate that. And you need to YouTube it.’
‘Of course!’
‘We could have a party.’ She leans towards me, her eyes sparkling. God, I’ve missed this – I’ve missed her, she’s so much fun. ‘We could get Jana over. Not Tasha or Mo. I’m so sorry about that lunch. But good women. Petra. Derry. How about it? Friday? This coming Friday night?’
I can’t quite get a handle on her tone, but she’s got her phone out and starts texting.
‘What time should I tell them?’ she asks.
‘Are you, like, serious, Steevie?’
‘Yes.’ She’s surprised, and disappointment slides from my heart.
Steevie realizes that we’ve misunderstood each other. ‘But, Amy,’ she sounds almost angry, ‘you can’t do nothing. You’ve to punish Hugh.’
That’s not what I want. I just want never to see him again. But because Steevie and I have been friends for so long, I offer, ‘Well, I hit him a few times. Would that do?’
With a short laugh, she says, ‘Got to be lots worse than that. He cheated, so you punish. Then you can take him back with your self-respect intact.’
‘That’s not happening.’
‘Stop, Amy. You can be honest with me. I hear he wants you back.’
I bump over the discomfort of knowing people are talking about my marriage. ‘Me and Hugh are done.’
She goes white with surprise.
After a few moments, I try to lighten the mood. ‘Do people really do that stuff to cheating men? Cutting off their bollocks and nailing them to a lamppost? Planting prawns in the curtain poles of their new bachelor shag-pad?’
She makes a cute-funny face. ‘Ladies be cray when their man stray.’
‘I’m not cray.’
‘Why not?’ She’s confused.
‘Sad is what I feel.’
After a long, long pause, she says, ‘You’re too passive.’
‘I will never get back with him. That’s hardly passive.’
We eye each other warily. Neither of us knows what to say – which feels strange and tragic.
‘So, listen.’ She stands up and puts her coat on. ‘It’s good to see you. But Monday night, you know, work tomorrow, better head, loads to do, see you soon, yeah?’
‘Um … Soon. For sure.’
We give each other an uncomfortable half-hug and Steevie darts out into the cold dark night.
I’m not sure what happened there except that, once again, she thinks I’ve let her down.
Her unexpected arrival had given me hope that I wouldn’t be quite as alone as I have been. Now, as she scoots off as fast as she can, I understand that Steevie won’t be plugging any gaps in me, and I feel bereft.
Instantly I flick through everything good I can think of –KiaraWineDerryFoodSofieNeeveNewShoes – to try to make the loneliness go away and nothing works. Then I think of Josh and it’s like the sun has come out. I’ll see him tomorrow night. I give thanks for Tuesday nights. As long as I have them, I can keep going.
101
Tuesday, 17 January
‘Josh, tell me about your movie scripts.’
We’re lying in bed, wrapped tightly around each other, and I feel him tense up. He pauses before he answers. ‘That’s all in the past.’
I’ve tried a couple of times in the previous weeks and he’s shut me down, but I know it’s an important part of him. ‘Tell me anyway.’
After another taut silence, he mumbles, ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘I want to know about you. Everything.’
‘I hate talking about it.’
‘Why?’
Another stretch of nothing. Then, ‘At twenty-one, I thought I was so talented and, you know, original, that it was all mine for the taking. I didn’t realize that everyone is arrogant and clueless at that age. But my talent was nothing like as big as my self-belief.’
‘And what happened?’
He shrugs. ‘I wrote movie scripts, lots of them. I even got an agent. But nothing ever came of any of it.’
‘Nothing?’
He sighs. ‘Producers took meetings with me. They’d ask for changes to my script and I’d do them. Then they’d ask for more changes. Or something else would get made that was too similar to my stuff. Or they just lost interest.’
I tighten my hold on him.
‘The ten years between twenty-one and thirty-one were just one knockback after another. In the early days I was surprised that not everyone got my genius but I was young and thought I was God so I rolled with the punches. But it kind of all caught up with me eventually and collapsed the whole stupid dream, and I saw that I’d never be good enough.’
I don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound patronizing.
‘And now I’m middle-aged and it’s a hard thing, knowing that my glittering future is far behind me. That it never actually happened.’
‘You’re not middle-aged. That concept doesn’t really exist any longer, does it?’
He gives me a look. ‘Oh, believe me, it does.’
‘But …’ And there’s nothing I can actually say.
‘I had to make peace with none of my dreams coming true. That wasn’t easy.’