32
LOUISE
I shouldn’t have let him in, I shouldn’t have let him in, is all I can think as the horror of the whole mess now collapsing around me sinks in. If I hadn’t let him in, I wouldn’t have had to face it. Not yet. I want to be sick. I don’t know what to say.
He’s shaking with rage as he stands in my sitting room, waving Adele’s crappy mobile phone at me, shouting something about having read all the texts. I’m crying, and I don’t even know when I started, maybe when he first stepped through the door and I instantly knew he knew, but I wish I wasn’t. My stomach has turned to water and I feel as if I’ve been caught in an affair and I’m trying to explain it away. I hate myself.
‘The whole time?’ He’s incredulous, still struggling to get his head around it. ‘All this time you’ve been friends with my wife and you didn’t tell me?’ His Scottish accent is stronger in his anger, country rough, and it surprises me. A stranger’s voice.
‘I didn’t know how to!’ I wail at him, my hands gesticulating with no meaning at all except maybe to try and wave it all away. ‘I didn’t … I literally bumped into her in the street and she fell over and then we went for coffee! I didn’t mean to be her friend but then she texted me and I didn’t know what to do!’
‘And you didn’t think to mention to her that you worked for me? You didn’t think that would be normal?’
I’m shocked into momentary silence that must look like more guilt. I thought he knew everything. Maybe he found Adele’s phone and then came straight here? Maybe he hasn’t spoken to her yet? Or maybe she didn’t tell him that part. Maybe she was too afraid. I don’t know what to say. Should I tell him that of course she knew? That she asked me to keep it a secret? But then that gets her into more trouble. And of all of us, Adele is the one who hasn’t done anything wrong here. I say nothing.
‘How fucking crazy are you?’ Spit flies out with his words. ‘Jesus, I thought you were so honest. So normal. Have you been stalking me?’
‘I felt sorry for her!’ I scream at him, even though the walls are thin and Laura next door will definitely hear. ‘She was lonely!’
‘Jesus fuck, Louise. You know how crazy this is, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t want to be her friend. I didn’t.’ The words are snotty through my tears. ‘I got roped in, and at the start I thought what we’d done in the bar was a one-off.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me? All these fucking lies, Louise? Who are you?’
‘I didn’t lie, I just didn’t—’ I shrug, helpless. I just didn’t tell you. It’s feeble and I know it even before he cuts me off.
‘What was it you said to me? You’re an open book?’ He sneers and I barely recognise him. ‘You’re full of shit. I thought I could trust you.’ He turns away and runs his hand through his hair, but it looks as though he’s on the verge of tearing it out by the roots. ‘I can’t get my head around this. I can’t.’
‘What are you really worried about, David?’ I take the moment. The best form of defence is attack, and if he thought he could trust me then why didn’t he ever tell me anything? Maybe he’s the one full of shit. ‘That maybe I know things I shouldn’t? That maybe I’ll make Adele grow a spine and sort you out? Kick you out? Get her life back?’
‘What?’ He turns and looks at me, properly looks at me, for the first time since he’s stormed inside. He frowns. His voice lowers. ‘What has she said to you about me?’
‘Oh, she never says anything other than she loves you.’ It’s my turn to sneer. ‘But I see things. I know how you treat her. How nervous of you she is. I see how you’ve been playing around with her head.’
He stares at me long and hard. ‘Don’t for a second think you know anything about my marriage.’
‘I know you have all her money. Is that why you won’t leave? The poor little farmer’s boy saves the wealthy heiress and then gets her to sign over her inheritance and never gives it back? You’re a walking Agatha fucking Christie plot.’ Now I’m angry. Yes, maybe he is right to be so upset with me, and I don’t know how I’d feel in his position – violated and cheated maybe – but he was sleeping with me behind his wife’s back, so I’m claiming that as a get-out-of-jail-free card, for now, anyway.
‘You really think nothing of me at all, do you?’ He’s pale and shaking, but his eyes are all fire.