‘You said you’d already told me everything, about how lonely you felt, how it’s my fault for spending time with Jonny, the miscarriage, you working so hard, that you’d given in when Nicky, the person I used to call my sister, forced herself on you in some sort of weird jealousy trip against me.’
Cassie can feel the anger heating her already, rising quickly through her body to her head like mercury in a thermometer.
‘Cassie, please. We’re never going to get anywhere unless you actually listen to me.’
She breathes out. He’s right, of course. She knows she’s being obstructive, but the truth is, she’s still too angry, and there’s a part of her that, it turns out, really relishes being angry; it’s so much clearer than sadness.
She balls crumbs from her muffin together on her plate and nods.
‘OK,’ she says, looking up at him. He’s leaning forward towards her, hands clasped together on the table. ‘OK, you’re right.’
He breathes out, fully emptying his lungs before taking a deep breath and starting to talk.
‘Nicky called me at lunch, said she was coming earlier to surprise you. I thought it was a bit weird, but she said she wanted to make supper for you, have it ready when you got home like she used to. There weren’t any taxis so she called me when she got to the station. I’d had another shitty day and felt like I was going to implode if I didn’t have a break. So I thought I’d pick her up, take her home and do some work while she did whatever she wanted to do in the kitchen for you.’
‘But then she gave you a beer and you just couldn’t control yourself.’
‘No, Cas. Come on, you said you’d listen. Look, it felt good just to talk to someone, like releasing pressure. I never thought running the company would be like this; I knew I’d be busy but the stress isn’t about the workload. I’m responsible for other people’s families now. If we don’t succeed I have to make redundancies. My dad never made a single redundancy in his whole career, did you know that? Then of course we lost the baby and I felt I shouldn’t feel so sad about it, had no right when it must have been so much harder for you, but you didn’t talk to me about it, you talked to Jonny.’ He pauses, rubs his face with his hands. ‘She didn’t say anything. She just listened to me and then she kissed me.
‘I promise you, Cassie, we only kissed that one time. It never went further.’
‘That’s not how it looked.’
‘Cassie, please, it was all so quick. One minute I was saying how much I missed us, you and me, missed feeling like a team, then next minute she was kissing me and then I saw you and my heart died.’
‘Sorry for interrupting you.’
Jack knows better than to challenge her sarcasm.
‘Nicky’s jealous of you, Cas. I’ll bet she always has been.’
‘How the fuck can she be jealous of me? No dad, no mum, only a fucking weirdo stepdad and now, thanks to her, a fucking cheat for a husband.’
Jack props his elbows on the table, rakes his fingers through his hair, and says, ‘Oh god, Cas, please don’t say that, I know you’re angry, you have every right to be, but I’m terrified you’re going to throw everything we have away because of this stupid mistake.’
Cassie slaps both her palms down on the table as if she needs to wake Jack up.
‘She was my best friend, Jack. My best fucking friend.’
His hands still hold onto his hair and he starts shaking his head.
‘I know, Cas, I know, but you have to forgive me.’ He wipes his eyes.
‘No I don’t.’
He looks up at her, his eyes stormy.
‘Come on, Cas, don’t destroy our life because of one stupid slip-up.’
‘I haven’t destroyed anything,’ she replies, feeling the mercury inside her soar, but then he looks up at Cassie, his eyes contoured in red, and she realises how alone they both are.
‘Look, do you want me to stay in the office for a while?’
‘Why don’t you stay at your mum’s?’ she says, but she knows the answer already.
He’s back to shaking his head again.
‘You know I can’t tell her about all this; it’d upset her too much. You promised she didn’t have to know.’
Cassie knows he’s right of course; Charlotte would be devastated, more than even Jack knows, if she knew her beloved son had done exactly what Mike did to Charlotte. No, she couldn’t bear hurting Charlotte like that.
‘I won’t say anything to Charlotte,’ she says, feeling Jack’s eyes as they pull up to her face, ‘and you can stay here but I really want you to give me space for the next few days, OK?’
Jack nods and splutters a small thanks, a grateful smile playing across his lips.
Cassie pushes the half-eaten muffin away. It tastes bitter; the chocolate roils around her stomach like dirty washing.
‘And I think we should focus on getting through Christmas and everything and assess in the New Year.’ She’ll be about twelve weeks by then, and the baby will be safer. She’ll have to tell Jack then, make a decision about her and her child’s future.
Jack nods, a faint smile cracking his face.
‘That’s good to hear, Cas, really, so good to hear,’ before he adds, his voice slipping into poorly concealed jealousy, ‘I’m assuming you’ve told Jonny all about this?’
Cassie looks at her husband who now seems so ordinary, so much smaller somehow, than the man she remembers marrying.
‘Jack, it’s none of your business what I choose to tell my friend.’
‘I just thought maybe we could keep it between us.’
Cassie laughs at him, but it doesn’t feel good. It burns her throat.
‘I hope you’re fucking joking, Jack.’
He goes back to rubbing his face again and suddenly, without knowing she would, she says, ‘I just realised.’
He looks at her to keep talking.
‘This morning, when you bought me coffee, you reminded me of someone and I couldn’t place who it was but now I know exactly who I was thinking of.’
Jack, anticipating another attack says, ‘Let me guess, I reminded you of a fucking idiot?’
Cassie smiles. ‘Well yes, obviously,’ she says, but then she shakes her head, almost flirtatious, before a coolness curls itself around her heart again, and she realises she’s completely serious. ‘You reminded me of your dad.’
Jack’s face drops, heavy as a stone, and suddenly she wishes she could pull Jack towards her, pull the words she just said out of his ear, and bury her face in his chest, tell him she didn’t mean it, bring him back to safety.
‘Why? Why do you say that?’ he asks. The lines around his eyes narrow in pain and Cassie notices a flicker, a recognition, pass behind them and she thinks, not for the first time, that at some level he knows about Mike, who his dad really was: a liar who broke his promise to Charlotte every time he booked a hotel room, every time he unbuckled his belt.
‘Just because you look like him more now, with the stubble, that’s all,’ Cassie says.
She shrugs and stands up from the table. Jack stands as well, mirroring her, Maisie in her basket raises her head and Cassie knows Jack’s sadness is morphing, curdling into something more familiar and dangerous.