This is it.
I have chosen to do it at Michelle’s house on a night when I know Patrick is away. I agonized about the venue. Ultimately I came down on the side that dropping this particular bombshell in public wouldn’t be the kindest thing to do. It’s not going to be pretty.
I deliberately picked an evening when Patrick would be gone for the whole night. I have no idea where he is going, obviously. The official story is Manchester. But I know he’ll be holed up in a London hotel somewhere with Bea. At her flat even. Safely out of the way. And I even thought maybe it would give her a chance to check up on him. To do some detective work before he started to cover his tracks.
I just have to hope she trusts me enough to believe what I’m telling her. Oh the irony.
I call Adam while I’m in the cab on my way to Highgate. I need someone to reassure me I’m doing the right thing. Plus I need a diversion to stop the cabbie droning on at me about his family. There are lots of them, that’s all I can tell you. I tuned out early on, but even the effort of grunting in a non-committal way every time he leaves a pause is exhausting. It takes him a moment to cotton on to the fact that I am making a call so, at the point I say, “Hi, it’s me,” he is saying:
‘… with some geezer lives on the Old Kent Road …’
‘Are you at a Chas and Dave concert?’ Adam says.
‘I wish. I’m on my way.’
‘Like I told you last night, just get it out there. Once you’ve told her, the rest is up to her.’
Adam had called me on the way home from his date with Jordan’s mum who, it turns out, is called Mel. I don’t know if he knew that I’d be hunched over my mobile waiting for a debrief like a crack addict over a pipe. I hope I haven’t given myself away that much.
I had spent most of the evening trying to imagine how it was going between my unlikely crush and my doppelganger. I poked myself with images to see if it really did hurt. And it did. Not majorly. Just a little. Just enough to confirm that my feelings for Adam have morphed from friendly to something entirely different. I pictured him making her laugh, teasing her in the same way he does me. Asking her about herself, because he’s genuinely interested in other people. Seeing her home, because he’d learned his lesson on that one.
Her inviting him in.
When he phoned at quarter past ten I breathed a sigh of relief that nothing too newsworthy must have happened. Unless he’d given her a quick one up against the pub car-park wall. Adam didn’t strike me as the up-against-the-wall type, though. Unless she’d insisted. Then he might have been too polite to say no.
‘So, how did it go?’ I said as soon as I answered.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘She’s nice.’
‘Wow! Don’t get a job as a reviewer, will you? Don’t you teach English?’
Adam laughed. ‘OK, it was an enjoyable evening. She’s edifying company.’
‘Better. OK, I need a step-by-step account.’
‘Not now. Now we need to go over what you’re going to say tomorrow.’
‘Are you seeing her again, though?’
‘Yes. Probably. Right … hold on, I’m just getting off the bus …’
I heard the doors open and the whoosh of the wind through his phone. Back in Clapham already? I did a quick mental calculation. His date must have ended by quarter to ten at the latest. Surely not an auspicious sign?
‘So …’ Adam said. ‘It is still on for tomorrow, right?’
‘It is. Apparently Patrick is in Manchester for the night.’
‘Tell me what you’re going to say.’
Adam and I had worked this out in detail. I had even written notes so that I could revise. The whole story is a minefield that requires careful negotiation. Firstly I had to make up the reason I knew any of this in the first place. We had decided on a combination of industry rumours that were hard to ignore followed by Adam and I spotting Patrick and a woman coming out of the Covent Garden Hotel together on the night when I knew he was supposed to be playing football. It wasn’t too much of a stretch of the truth. A bit of a glitch in the timeline that had Patrick and Bea leaving together rather than separately.
The big issue was, did I tell her it was Bea? I had been there when she met Bea just the other day. I had watched them chat (and Bea patronize Michelle) and said nothing. Plus I didn’t even want to skirt near the question of how Patrick and Bea might have met in the first place. On balance we decided I should say nothing. Maybe make the point that while Adam had seen her I had only caught a glimpse. Like I said, fudge it.
I was banking on her being too distraught about the big picture to focus too much on the details.
Then I would just wait. Be there for my friend and duck when Patrick threw the big grenade. By then I hoped she would be so convinced of his guilt that she wouldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth.
As plans went it was hardly the Hatton Garden robbery.
‘OK, good,’ Adam said when I had run through the whole thing again. ‘The secret is to stick to your guns. Don’t deviate.’
‘I feel sick,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Try and get some sleep.’
‘I’ll try. So … you’re definitely going to see her again … Mel?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘Great. Where are you going to go next time?’
‘Stop trying to avoid going to bed. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Night, Tamsin.’
Today he phoned me again on his lunch break. I was in Anne Marie’s office going through a budget, but I knew that if I missed him the chances of me getting hold of him later were slim to none. He would be on lunch duty or overseeing detention or in the middle of asking someone if they’d do whatever they were currently doing in their own home. So I told her it was important and I ducked out and into my own office, shutting the door behind me.
‘Ring me the second you get out of there. The second. I don’t care how late it is.’
‘I was thinking I might even stay the night. If the dog walker can have Ron.’
‘If you do, let me know. I’m going to be sat there all evening by the phone like a saddo.’
‘I will. I promise. Wish me luck.’
‘It’ll be fine. Well, it won’t, but it’ll be over.’
I had been avoiding Bea all morning. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I knew she thought I was behaving oddly, but I couldn’t seem to do anything about it. Once Adam had given me another pep talk I handed a pile of filing to Ashley on my way out to get myself a salad.
‘Do you mind?’ I said, chucking the whole stack on her desk, where it teetered ominously. ‘It’s not urgent.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Thanks,’ I called over my shoulder as I headed down the stairs, keen to get out before my assistant caught me giving her work to someone else.
‘I’m staying over at Danny’s,’ Bea said when she saw me clock her overnight bag as she was leaving for the day. I’d exhausted myself trying to avoid talking to her for the past eight hours.
‘Wow! That’s a big step, isn’t it?’ I said, trying to disguise the fact that I knew she was lying through her straight white teeth.
‘Epic,’ she said with a cat-that-got-the-cream smile.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked, and if I hadn’t known better I would have thought her concern was genuine.
‘Sure. Just … PMT. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
Now I’m sitting at Michelle and Patrick’s kitchen table. Somewhere I have sat countless times before over the years. My home from home. I suddenly wonder who’ll get to keep the house. I remember when Michelle first saw it. She took me along with her for a second opinion before she even told Patrick about it. We both fell in love with it on sight. A cosy two-storey, plus a basement kitchen terrace with a tiny walled garden out the back. A ‘real’ gas fire burning in the original Victorian fireplace. A full wall of fold-back patio doors. The perfect blend of period meets modern. Two bedrooms. I could read what Michelle was thinking – this is the perfect place to start a family.
By the time she took Patrick round to see it it was a done deal. I remember thinking how touching it was that he would go along with whatever would make her happy. It made me think that maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible if she married him after all.
She plonks a mug of Salted Caramel Green Tea down in front of me. She is still on her conception health kick and I don’t want to risk the effects of alcohol. She sits on the chair opposite.
‘Everything OK?’
I breathe in slowly. Throw myself off the cliff.
‘Actually no. Mich … there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’