And still, Adam declines my calls. Even as I am there to witness him phone Marc and fill Marc in on whatever is happening. As I watch him, clearly, ask Marc to keep me out of the loop, while I sit there redundant in Romilly’s fluffy slippers.
We have divided down gender lines. Even though I have been in a relationship with this man for four years. Even though Marc only knows Adam because Ro and I introduced them.
I feel it again; a flash of furious scarlet.
When Adam finally speaks to me, he will say, I know, that this wasn’t about me. That he had to focus on Marc. I’m collateral damage.
But the utter disregard for my opinion, for what I believe is happening … I feel a rage that hasn’t come to me often in life. Stella level.
Because for the first time, as I change back into my trainers and walk away from Romilly’s house and break into a run to clear my head and feel a fog lifting as I move, faster, faster, I am able to elucidate it.
The rain begins.
This is what I think.
I think that the reason Marc is so fixated on making us believe that Romilly has postpartum psychosis – handed to him on a plate as he had attended Romilly’s appointments with her – is because he is using it to cover up something else.
Something that he did.
Heavier, now.
Something that is the reason my friend is so adamant that I don’t trust him.
Something that affected Ro in those months before she gave birth.
I think that whatever he did, something even worse happened just before she gave birth, when she sent me that message that alarmed me so much.
The rain pounds down, means business.
And this time, that thing was so bad that it made Romilly leave the country, just after her baby girl was born. Made her feel she had no choice.
All of which means that Marc is not the man I thought I knew.
Here is what Google tells me about sociopaths:
Sociopaths lie. They are aggressive. They don’t make long-term plans and they blind people with their charisma.
I picture that big kid, up there on stage with his band.
Sociopaths don’t feel guilt if they have harmed others. They could carry on as normal.
They could make you a cup of tea.
They could take a bite of carrot cake, smile and tell you the cake tasted good. They could say they loved their wife or their child. But that would be fake.
My stomach plunges.
I speed up, heading towards a sprint as the rain gets heavier, as lightning strikes the mid-afternoon sky.
What I still haven’t figured out is whether Loll genuinely believes that her sister has postpartum psychosis too. And if she doesn’t, why she is going along with it. She knows so much about this condition; she would wade through freezing seas for Romilly. So where does she fit into whatever has been going on?
My breathing gets shorter. Droplets of rain drip from the end of my nose.
Marc has, I realise, given himself the perfect get-out. Even if Romilly gets in touch with me, by now he thinks he has convinced me that she is ill.
And so whatever she tells me, I will not trust her words.
My trainers pound the pavement.
The thunder comes; the rain torrential now.
Marc is betting that the risk is too great. That it is precisely because I am her best friend that I will help to bring her back to him.
He is banking on that fact, more than anything.
Like I’m a jury. Beyond reasonable doubt.
I am fit but my breath catches as I move faster, faster through this furious storm.
What he’s not banking on is what happens now, as I turn into my road on the way back from Romilly’s house and my phone – finally, finally – rings with Ad’s name on the screen.
‘You fucker,’ I say, panting hard and slowing to a walk. Inside my hood, I try to keep my phone dry. ‘If you think we will ever speak again after all of this is over, if you think you’re staying in the flat, you’re mis—’
I am putting my key in the door of our home and shaking the rain from my face, still going, thinking about how much I want to punch him in the face – my newfound violent streak gathering pace now – as I hear it.
‘Steffie,’ a voice that I know so well but that has snapped apart, broken away from itself says.
‘It’s not Adam. It’s Romilly.’