I try to avoid Edwin the following day, although to be honest, he is the least of my worries. All I can think about is Emily, with whom I exchange several texts throughout the day – about how she’s feeling even sicker, is in turmoil about what to do and how I mustn’t tell anyone, words she can’t seem to repeat enough.
By the time the bell goes and I drive over to Cate’s, my head is pounding with it all.
I don’t bother giving Cate an update about Edwin when she asks, I just mumble something about not feeling the same about him any more. In other circumstances, she’d have me pinned down on a chair, grilling me for information about this volte-face, but she has other things on her mind. Including wine.
I deliberately refused to bring something so she could self-medicate herself into a stupor, but now she wants a drink it doesn’t feel like the right time to deny her. The pub is out of the question, so I suggest we go for a walk to the convenience shop. I suspect it’s the first time she’s been out – and not cowering in the back of the shop or her flat – since the picture reappeared on Facebook on Tuesday.
It’s a sunny evening, but the air is heavy with moisture when we step out of her flat, and by the time we’re at the bottom of her road, the light drizzle has become heavy enough for me to push up an umbrella. The glimmer of a rainbow appears on the horizon as we turn the corner. It hardly feels appropriate to our mood. We reach the shop and Cate slows outside the window as a woman serving at the till, who looks to be in her early sixties and has blonde, bobbed hair, looks up at us. Her expression changes when she recognises Cate.
‘Here’s the money,’ Cate mutters, thrusting a ten-pound note in my hand. ‘You get the wine and I’ll wait outside?’
‘But don’t you want to get out of the rain?’
‘I’m fine with the umbrella,’ she insists. ‘And I’ve got my hood.’
I find a bottle of white on offer and wait in a lengthy queue before I’m served, though not by the woman who recognised my apparently infamous friend. When I emerge, Cate is itching to return to the safety of her flat.
And as we walk through the streets, I realise why: people are looking at her. Not everyone, not even most people. But you can see the occasional sideways glances; the snatched looks. Cate’s notoriety is no mere figment of her imagination.
‘You shouldn’t be intimidated about the idea of seeing people you know,’ I hear myself saying as we tramp back up the hill.
She frowns at me, looking suddenly hurt, as if I don’t understand.
‘I completely get it, why you feel like you do,’ I add hastily. ‘I’m simply saying that you mustn’t go into hiding. You haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I’ve come out tonight, haven’t I?’
‘If you count the Spar as “out”, I suppose so,’ I say gently.
‘And I saw Will this afternoon,’ she adds.
I stop in my tracks, shocked that she’s only just mentioning this. ‘Good. Great, in fact. So . . . how is everything?’
‘Fine,’ she shrugs, taking her keys out of her pocket as we approach the flat. ‘He came over. I made him a coffee. He went.’
‘Is that all?’ It strikes me that they had a significant amount of unaddressed business to catch up on, not just a coffee.
We plod up her stairs and she puts her key in the door, then her shoulders slump. ‘No, that wasn’t all,’ she says. ‘Come in.’
We get inside and the story tumbles out. Will came over and they talked about the pictures, despite how mortifying Cate found the entire conversation. He looked confused and pitying and angry and sad. But they ended up kissing and for one sweet, fleeting moment Cate convinced herself that it was all going to be OK.
‘Then he went to the loo and a text arrived, from his mum.’ She lowers her head. ‘I didn’t even mean to see it, but it beeped and I just rolled over and instinctively picked up the phone.’
‘What did it say?’
‘It said, I feel awful about upsetting you earlier, but I promise I’m only thinking of you. You need to stay away from girls like that, Will. The whole thing will come to no good. Give me a ring if you want a chat – love Mum xx.
‘Oh God.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, Will’s obviously heard what she thinks about you and decided he shouldn’t stay away.’
She sniffs. ‘He didn’t know I’d seen the text, but when he picked up his phone and read it, everything changed. He left shortly afterwards. I don’t blame him in the slightest.’
‘What makes you say that everything changed? What did he say?’
‘It was nothing he said. I can just tell, Lauren,’ she says, dropping on to the sofa. ‘He hasn’t been in touch since then.’
‘It was only yesterday.’
‘I agree with his mum,’ she says defiantly. ‘He could have any girl he wants, not someone the whole of Twitter is calling a slut and who can’t walk round her own town any more without knowing that every second person has seen that picture. His mum’s totally right: it can come to no good.’
I’m about to protest, when the bell rings. ‘Do you want me to get it?’ I offer.
She thinks for a moment, anguish etched in her forehead. ‘Don’t worry.’ She pushes herself up and heads into the hall. I can hear Will’s voice, even though I’m in the next room and the door is shut. I turn on the TV to try and drown out their conversation and give them some privacy. But as the volume rises, it’s impossible to avoid hearing the entire sorry saga unfold.
‘Cate, why are you pushing me away? I’ve come to try to get through to you, to tell you that I love you. To show you that I love you. What more do you want me to do?’
‘Not raising your voice at me would help for a start,’ she fires back, apparently oblivious that she’s significantly louder than him. ‘I don’t need you swanning in here, Will, having spent twenty-four hours clearly wondering what the right thing to do is. I can see this isn’t easy for you. But let me reassure you, I’m fine by myself.’
‘So I’m surplus to requirements now? There is absolutely nothing I can do – nothing at all – that is any use to you?’
‘Just don’t do this, Will . . . ’
‘Do what?’
‘You know what. Make a big thing of this. Don’t you think I’ve got enough going on in my life right now without you acting like this?’
‘When did I become the bad guy, Cate?’ He sounds incredulous. ‘Aren’t I the guy who’s standing here, in front of you, despite everything? Aren’t I the guy who doesn’t give a fuck what photos there are of you out there? Aren’t I the guy who’s shown nothing but loyalty and determination to get through to you that I think you’re the most amazing woman on earth? What more do you want from me?’
‘For you not to be standing on my doorstep yelling at me, for a start!’ she shrieks.
And, even before the next words are out of her mouth, I know what’s happening. I can see it coming: she is about to screw this up with Will. Irreversibly.
‘You seem to think you’re some sort of fucking hero, Will. Well, congratulations! You’re in the “great guy” club – you’ve got a girlfriend who’s a slag and who everyone looks down on but you don’t mind! You’re not shallow enough to dump her . . . yet.’
His silence can only be explained by disbelief. And I’ll admit I’m with him on that one.
‘OK, I give up,’ he says finally. ‘You win, Cate. I’m out of your life.’