Adam and I travel up to Highgate with Michelle. I tell her I’ll stay the night and he says he will, too, even though I try to persuade him he doesn’t need to. She’s quiet on the journey home. Overwhelmed by the reality of what’s just happened.
We sit up in the living room long after Michelle has gone to bed. I doubt she’ll sleep but I think she wants some time on her own to process everything.
‘Do you think I’ve done the right thing?’ I ask, once I hear her shut the bedroom door.
‘No idea. I don’t see what else you could have done really. She needed to know.’
‘I wish I was blameless in all this, though. I feel like a shit. And a hypocrite.’
He leans over and pats my knee. ‘You can’t change any of it. You’re still going to have Michelle. The rest’ll be ancient history soon.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever lied to her before about anything. Now I can’t stop.’
He reaches for the bottle of wine we’ve pilfered from Michelle’s fridge, and I hold out my glass.
‘You need to stop beating yourself up.’
I look at Adam. He’s so kind. Such a good person. He’s been attentive to Michelle all evening, anxious to make sure the whole experience was as painfree as it could be. I feel a lump in my throat.
‘Thank you for being here. I’m not sure either of us could have got through it without you.’
‘Oh no. Let’s not start getting maudlin or I’m taking your glass away.’
‘I mean it, though.’
He holds up his hand. ‘Stop it.’
For a split second I wonder what he’d do if I kissed him. I want to. In fact, I suddenly realize I want to do more than just kiss him. I want to launch myself at him and give him a good seeing to on Michelle’s sofa. Mind you, the last time I got into a clinch with someone on a sofa it didn’t turn out so well. And what if I did and he was horrified? What if he said we couldn’t be friends any more because it would be too awkward now I’d made my true feelings clear?
Or what if I did and he went for it, and then I woke up tomorrow morning and thought, What the hell have I done? After Patrick I swore I would never have drunk sex again. With anyone.
I force myself to stand up. ‘OK, bed.’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he says with a wry smile on his face.
‘Ha ha.’
I head towards the door. Wave one hand as I go. ‘Night.’
‘Night night,’ he calls after me. ‘And, Tamsin, don’t lie awake worrying about it.’
In the morning at breakfast – made by Adam at his insistence – Michelle says, ‘I want to speak to Bea. I want to hear her side of it.’
‘They will have got their stories straight by now. Whatever she said to you would be whatever they’ve agreed to say.’ I need to keep reinforcing the fact that neither of them can be trusted to tell the truth.
‘Do you think they met up after we left last night?’ she asks sadly. Adam puts a rack of toast on the table.
‘I don’t know. But they definitely will have spoken.’
‘That stuff he said last night about the honey trap. Did he just make that up? I mean, why would you even think of something like that?’
I pause, just long enough to compose myself, not so long that it looks as if I don’t know what to say.
‘God knows. I think he blames me for you finding out and he just wanted to try to hurt me, too.’
She shakes her head. ‘I feel as if I don’t know him at all.’
‘Are you sure you should be going in to work today?’ Adam says, sitting down at the table with us.
‘Oh God, yes. I’ll go crazy if I just sit here.’
‘Well eat then.’ He passes her the toast, then the butter. I half expect him to cut it up into soldiers and feed it to her. ‘You need to keep your strength up.’
‘You can tell he’s a teacher,’ I say and he pulls a face at me.
‘Thank you both,’ Michelle says and a tear drops onto the piece of toast she’s halfway through buttering.
‘You’ll be OK,’ I say. ‘I promise.’