She messaged me her lavish apologies that they can’t come to the funeral due to a family holiday in Marbella: ‘It’s a luxury villa we booked through Mr & Mrs Smith, has a heated pool and use of a speedboat, we’d literally lose thousands,’ Becky told me, amid her tearstained odes to her love for Susie. I said yes, absolutely, don’t worry. Your gorgeous number one bff would’ve understood. And the thing is, Susie would have. She’d have said non refundable deposits and whirlpool tubs trumped sentimentality any day.
I start scanning it from the beginning.
Sorry for taking ages to write back, work’s been mad. Wow, so – you fair blew my mind with your news – you and Ed! Not so much a slow burn as a no burn? And then a blaze. Hahaha. WOW. You sly dog! Dog(s) plural. I had no idea you two had the horn for each other and sounds like you didn’t either.
What. What? What? No. I feel my gorge rise. I reread this passage seven times before I’m able to read on. The back of my neck is cold and I can’t feel my feet.
So to answer your concerns, I can see why you’re worried. The thing is, if you and Ed don’t tell anyone what happened then no one’s going to know, simple as that. Ed’s not going to confess to his L/T girlfriend, he’s not stupid, is he? Why would he?! As for your issues around Eve, she might be besotted but she’s not his girlfriend. She has no right to get upset with you, but yeah if she feels as strongly as you say about him, *don’t* tell her. I don’t see why you need that aggro. Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing more between you & Ed though? It sounded torrid. Gonna need the full debrief over margs and Doritos next time you’re down
My life is SO boring by comparison, remember that promotion I told you about that my …
My hands now glistening wet with sweat, I speed-read through the rest of the letter and ascertain there’s nothing else about the Susie and Ed tryst in it, or about me. I sit down on the bed heavily and read it again and again, hoping for the words or meaning to change.
Ed and Susie. Susie and Ed. Could Becky mean some other Ed? Perhaps it’s too indicative of my psychological state that I spend almost a minute trying to stand that theory up, though it requires Susie not only to know another Ed, but for him to have a long-term girlfriend and an Eve who’s ‘besotted’. She knew. My most closely guarded, painful secret, and even fucking Becky Speedboat Villa Holiday knew.
When people say: ‘My whole life has been a lie,’ it sounds like purple scriptwriting, like something they’d shout in the Old Vic on Christmas EastEnders.
Yet I can’t think of any more accurate way to describe how I’m feeling, as I sit stunned on my bed, tears rolling down my face. All my cherished ideas of what Ed and I felt for each other, separated by cruel circumstance, our Tesco Express version of a Shakespeare tragedy – a lie. Who I thought Ed Cooper was – a lie. (Fuck, is it possible he DID get my letter, back in the day, but Hester was just too big a temptation?)
My best friend, who I thought kept nothing from me, who I thought I knew the very bones of – nope. Her greatest secret imaginable, and Becky was someone worthy to share it with, not me.
Our friendship group, which I set so much store in, people I’d go to war for – the whole time had this subset within it, people who’d shagged and hid it, specifically from me. Did Justin know? How big a fool have I been made, here? I’m woozy.
And finally, my firm belief that no one knew how I felt for Ed, except perhaps, obviously, Ed. This revelation might be harder to accept than the sex. Susie knew all along. Why did she never say? Because she wanted Ed for herself? The closest person to me was busy outmanoeuvring me, over the thing that mattered to me the most? How did she know? I thought I’d given nothing away. Did Ed tell her? Pillow talk?
There’s no one I can talk to about this. I love Justin and vice versa, but he’s still Ed’s best friend. The only person I could tell this to – my best friend – is firstly, the person who’s most hurt me and, secondly, dead.
To take first place on the podium ahead of Ed Cooper in the most-hurting-me Olympics is an absolutely awesome achievement, here. The only latitude available was Susie not knowing how I felt, and evidently, she did know.
I lie on my bed, stare at the ceiling and ask myself why I set a bomb off by reading that letter. I have shattered everything.
Ten years ago, Ed and Susie, two people I thought had never so much as shared an intimate glance, slept together. My best friend, and the man who I thought was my secret soulmate, destroying my image of, and trust in, both of them, in one fell swoop.
And the worst part of it is, the very worst part: Susie knew I was in love with Ed, and she did it anyway.
No. That’s not true. The worst part is, I never get to ask her why.
18
‘Where to, love?’
‘Wilford Crematorium.’
‘Ah, shame. Not a nice day for you, then?’ the cabbie says, looking at me over his shoulder, trying to pitch this as sympathetic, as opposed to quite nakedly prurient.
No of course it isn’t you dick, what kind of question is that?
‘No.’
‘Anyone close to you?’
‘Yes.’
Actually, I don’t know if that’s true. That’s how bad I feel. That’s how humiliated and betrayed I feel. I can’t even say goodbye to Susie today, the way I thought I would, as I don’t know who exactly I’m saying goodbye to.
‘Oh. Sorry to hear.’
The taxi reeks of a large and turnipy burp he did right before he picked me up, but I’m too British to roll the window down and thus communicate: ‘you smell’.
‘… D’ya want the radio on?’ he says, after deciding perhaps on balance he won’t inquire into my loss further, and I mumble: ‘Sure, OK.’
‘Do you listen to Radio Two, ever?’ he says, once it’s blaring out. I gather he’s in a chatty mood. Despite picking up a woman with grey-pale skin, wearing a black coat over a black dress, eyes red-rimmed and puffy from much crying and scant sleep, who has asked to be driven to a place where they incinerate dead people, and answering him in clipped monosyllables, he’s still going to press on with the banter he fancies having, in the guise of trying to cheer me up.
‘Not much,’ I say.
‘See how many of these you can get for me in the pop quiz, I’m rubbish at this,’ he says, twiddling the volume knob upwards.
I rest my head on the car seat, close my eyes and think: this could be annoying but, actually, the burble of T’Pau is better than thinking about the destination.
‘“China in Your Hand”!’ the driver says.
‘That’s “Heart and Soul”,’ I say.
‘The answer is, “Heart and Soul”!’ says the presenter.
‘Very good!’ the taxi driver says, visibly impressed.
‘They only had two hits,’ I say. ‘Process of elimination.’
I’ve successfully dodged any conversations with Ed since I read the letter. I’ve accidentally missed his calls by being ‘in the shower’, answered WhatsApps in a way that didn’t invite lots of back-and-forth. He no doubt concluded I’m in a state of agitation before the funeral, and decided to let me lie low.