The evening’s Zumba class is enough to take my mind off the police investigation, even if it is temporarily. I’m supposed to be on an evening off, but my body is itching to do something that doesn’t involve moping around. I end up taking a space at the back of a class that’s being hosted by one of the trainers who rent a space at my studio. We all have something of an agreement that any of us can tag onto anyone else’s sessions if there is room.
I can tell that the trainer is nervous as she goes through the routine. She tells everyone to move left while simultaneously heading right, and then misses the beat on a couple of the track changes. It’s still plenty enough to help me work off the restless energy I’ve felt since being at the police station.
I shower, change and check my phone after the class – though there are no further messages from the ‘Miss me?’ number. There’s nothing from the police or my solicitor, either. All I have is a text from Andy asking if I’m going to meet him at Jane’s, or if we’re going to go together. I’d almost blocked it out, though there’s no getting out of it now.
I take the alternative route to Kingbridge, avoiding the country road that would have taken me past the rugby club and Little Bush Woods.
Andy’s work van is already parked on the road outside Jane and Ben’s when I arrive. I parallel park behind him, all the while cursing him for not pulling further forward.
It’s only when Jane answers the door and beckons me in that I glance towards the stairs and remember when David and I met. So much can happen in three years. At the time, this house felt like glorified student digs, as if Jane and I had never quite grown up properly. Now, there is a child gate at the bottom of the stairs and another at the top. When we get into the living room, Ben has a framed diploma on the wall. There’s a child monitor on the side, with a blinking green light. The kitchen counter has a soft polystyrene sphere covering what would have been a sharp edge. We act as if everything is the same as it’s always been, but I suppose that’s life. We spend large parts of it telling everyone else we’re perfectly fine, even when the opposite is true.
I’ve been interviewed twice by the police because they think I drunk-drove and hit an innocent pedestrian in the early hours of a morning – and yet I’m acting as if it’s nothing. I’ve seen my dead husband in a photo – and then gone to bed and got up the next day. Everything is an illusion.
Jane doesn’t mention being at my flat earlier, or the fact that she says she might have seen David. She’s put on a dress for the occasion, for which I don’t blame her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in anything other than loose clothes that are cheap enough to cope with being vomited on. She’s pushed the sofa to the side and set up the dining table in the living room. Andy and Ben are sitting next to one another, although, when I enter, they are silent like kids outside a headmaster’s office.
Andy stands and we share a misplaced fumble in which neither of us seems sure whether we’re trying to hug or kiss.
‘You got here,’ he says.
‘What gave it away?’
It doesn’t feel very funny and neither of us laugh as Jane enters with a plate of breads. As soon as we’re all sitting, she and Andy are chatting as if they’re the couple. She starts off by talking about a typical sort of day with Norah and that evolves into a conversation about his scout group and the football team he coaches. Before long, they’re on to schools, catchment areas, various school governors he knows, a nursery she’s been looking at – and so on.
I catch Ben’s eye and we share a brief smile that leaves me cold, before we each turn away.
Jane brings in the main course – some sort of fishy rice thing – but we’ve barely had a mouthful when the baby monitor sputters and Norah starts to cry. Ben and Jane swap a quick glance, but she’s already up and on her way before a word is swapped. It’s at that moment that Andy gets to his feet and disappears off towards the toilet.
Ben and I are opposite each other. Aside from brief, passing hellos, we haven’t seen each other in a long while.
I nibble at the rice dish, but my hunger has gone. It was a bad idea to come; I should have said I couldn’t make it. Excuses are easy to come up with – I have to pack; I’m not feeling well – whatever.
‘How are you doing?’ Ben asks.
‘Not bad. You?’
‘I’m fine, too.’
He mushes his fork into the rice, mixing it all around in a circle. He sighs and won’t look up, although he isn’t eating, either.
‘I didn’t ask for this,’ I say.
His fork pauses mid-stir and then he glances up to me. His voice is a hissed whisper: ‘You’re the one who keeps calling her and texting. You’re the one who meets her for lunch and coffees.’
‘We’ve been friends our whole lives. I knew her long before you. What do you want me to say to her?’
There’s a bump from the hallway and we both wait, although nobody appears. ‘We’ve got a daughter together,’ Ben mutters. ‘It’s not like it used to be.’
‘Again – what do you expect me to do? Even if I wanted to stop being friends, it’s not going to happen just like that. We only live a short distance apart. We’ve seen each other at least once a week for as long as I can remember.’
Ben clinks his fork into the side of his plate in annoyance. Where once I saw big, blue buttons for eyes, now I see an inferno. He opens his mouth to say something but never gets the words out because Andy breezes back into the room, utterly oblivious.
He sits, eats some of the rice, and then turns to Ben: ‘How’s life at the bank?’ he asks.
Ben eats some of the food himself, although, such is his anger, he ends up spilling some of it on the table. ‘I’ve got a conference starting tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I’m going to be away for four days.’
‘Where’s that?’ Andy asks.
‘London. They’re putting me up at a place near Euston.’
‘Nice.’
‘I’d rather be here.’
Ben glances towards me, but I quickly turn away, focusing on my own food. He’s made his point.
‘How’s your juice bar?’ Ben asks, although he doesn’t sound overly interested.
‘I’m looking to expand,’ Andy replies. ‘I’ve been talking to my own bank about possibly getting a loan to open a second bar. We’ve been going over possible properties.’
‘Exciting times.’
Ben couldn’t have sounded less enthused, although I’m not sure that Andy realises. It matters little anyway because there is a series of thumps from the stairs and then Jane re-emerges.
‘Norah went almost straight back to sleep,’ she says, before re-taking her seat. ‘Sometimes she only needs her hair stroking and that’s enough.’
We get through the rest of the meal with relative normality. Jane and Andy still make much of the conversation, while Ben and I routinely blank out everything that’s going on around us while umming and aahing at the appropriate times.
There’s always an awkward moment after people have finished eating in which nobody’s quite sure what happens next. Everyone really wants to head either home or somewhere far more comfortable than a dining table – though nobody wants to be the first person to bring it up.
It is Ben who finally breaks the impasse. He mentions his collection of football programmes, perhaps accidentally – and then he and Andy disappear into the garage to look through them. Jane waits until they’ve left and then pours herself another glass of wine.
‘That is such a blokey thing to do,’ she says. ‘Can you imagine me dragging you upstairs to go through old Cosmos?’ She swallows a mouthful of wine and then adds: ‘At least they’re getting on…’
I’m not sure how to respond because I would far rather they weren’t getting on. My hushed altercation across the table with Ben has brought that closely enough into focus.
‘How’s the car?’ Jane asks.
‘They’ve impounded it for some sort of inspection. My solicitor said I might not hear back about it for another week.’
‘I meant Andy’s BMW.’
‘Oh… His indicator stick is on the other side of the steering wheel, so I keep setting the wipers going when I’m trying to go around a corner – but it’s fine other than that.’
She holds the glass in front of her face, lowers it and then lifts it again. It feels like she’s mulling over whether to say something. In the end she places the glass on the table.
‘Are you still OK for tomorrow?’
I stare at her blankly, trying to figure out what she means.
She must see it because she quickly adds: ‘You’re taking Norah in the afternoon…’
‘Oh, of course. I thought you meant something else.’
I’m not fooling anyone. I’d completely forgotten I am supposed to be keeping an eye on Jane’s daughter while she gets a mole removed.
‘Take her to the park,’ Jane says. ‘The forecast says it’ll be dry and she loves going there. She’ll want to stroke all the dogs and, before you know it, ninety minutes will have gone past.’
‘You’re dropping her off at…?’
‘One o’clock. Do you want me to bring her to the studio or your flat?’
‘The flat. I’ve got packing to do in the morning anyway.’
Jane nods along, though my gaze is momentarily drawn towards the baby monitor, panicked that Norah might start crying again and I’ll be asked to go and sort it out as some sort of indoctrination. It wasn’t that long ago that I was telling David I was pregnant – and now it seems incomprehensible that I ever felt ready for that.
‘Are you looking forward to the move?’ Jane asks.
I hesitate, wondering if, perhaps, Andy has returned and is now standing behind me. Under the guise of stooping to scratch my ankle, I check there’s nobody there and then sit up straighter again.
‘Of course,’ I say.
‘I think it’s great that you’re finally moving on,’ she replies.
‘From David…?’
‘Who else? I’ve been thinking about what I saw in the park earlier and perhaps I was wrong. I was trying to keep an eye on Norah and there was a bit of mist around. I don’t know…’
I’m not surprised that she might try to backtrack on what she said she saw. It’s natural. We see something we can’t explain and then, in the hours afterwards, we convince ourselves it wasn’t really like that. My problem is that I have a photo to confirm what was there.
‘Are you sure you’re fine to look after Norah?’ Jane asks.
It’s not as if I could say ‘no’ when she first asked, let alone now.
‘Of course,’ I say.
She obviously sees it within me. ‘But…?’
‘I’m on bail,’ I say.
‘It’s not like you did anything, though, is it?’
‘No.’