‘They care,’ Ed says. ‘Just not as much as we do.’
‘This isn’t the time for your super reasonable balanced perspective. Let a shit thing be shit.’
‘I’m not saying it isn’t shit.’
I hunch my shoulders and turn away from him, looking back at the cloud-streaked ink sky.
‘We’ve got to look after each other. That’s the only way to get through this,’ Ed says, thickly. ‘That’s the only conclusion I’ve drawn.’
I don’t respond.
‘Are you angry with me about anything?’ Ed says, hesitantly. ‘Did I mangle the eulogy?’
‘No.’
‘No to both questions?’
I didn’t know I was going to say it, until this moment. Amid turmoil and inebriation and not knowing what else to do, whomp, it tumbles out of my mouth:
‘You slept with Susie.’
The actual words spoken feel jagged. It’s as if I swallowed something sharp and metallic, and it tears up my insides as it makes its way out of me.
20
‘… What?’
I look at Ed, his stunned expression. And I know, once again, it’s true. Even the near-imperceptible split-second beat before the ‘What?’
For an innocent person, it’d be an immediate: Wait, what?!
Not: ‘[Oh-my-God-how-does-she-know, hard gulp, response required] What?’
‘You heard.’
There was no way it wasn’t true, of course, but somehow the confirmation is still shocking and dramatic. Some truths, like Susie’s passing, are too large to be digested in one go.
Ed’s already pale skin is the colour of a fish’s belly. The people nearest to us, though still beyond earshot, have finished their cigarettes and troop back inside, making this moment of inquisition even more deathly quiet.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do I mean by “slept with”?
‘I mean, why are you saying that?’
‘Because you did.’
Ed stares at me, desperately trying to read my expression.
‘When?’ he says, though not with composure. I can see his fear.
‘You need me to specify which time period? How many times were there?’
‘No,’ Ed says hurriedly, trying to get control of himself, to work out how to handle this.
A combination of alcohol and incredible, soul-flattening misery has given me a malign super-strength. Every other expression of anger in my life, I realise, always came restrained with concerns about how it made me look, or how it affected the other person, or if I could get fired. Consequences, basically.
I don’t care! is often said but rarely fully meant. But I don’t. I have nothing left to protect or worry about in attacking Ed over Susie. From where I’m standing, I’ve already lost everything. I’m the origins story of a dangerous comic-book villain.
‘OK,’ Ed says, visibly heavy-breathing. ‘OK. Look. This isn’t the place …’
‘Hah!’ I give an evil, boozy snort. ‘I should’ve picked the many other occasions it was appropriate to raise you being a lying cheater who exploited our late friend …’
Exploited? I have no idea where that concept came from, but in for a penny. Once again, under stress, my mouth is galloping ahead.
‘Unfortunately I only found out last night, so.’
Ed is chewing the inside of his mouth, forehead furrowed, trying not to further incriminate himself. I am grimly satisfied at throwing a grenade into the wake for him, now he has to deal with it too.
After what looks like brief and fraught internal deliberation, he says in a small voice: ‘How did you find out?’
‘A letter. In the box I took from her house.’
‘I thought you weren’t going to look at them?’
‘So did I. But one had already been opened, it was right on top, and bingo.’
We stare at each other in the low lighting. A breeze is ruffling us and neither of us are shivering. I’m deliberately resisting any of the heavy look of shared understanding that Ed is trying to impart. That is over for good. Talk your way out of this one.
He opens his mouth.
‘Aren’t you two absolutely freezing?! What are you doing out here?’
Both of us turn to see Hester, arms folded over her chest in her navy wiggle dress.
‘Don’t mind me, what were you talking about? Looked intense.’
‘Just the reading …’ Ed says.
‘What about it?’
There’s a pause.
‘I see Eve’s fully equipped,’ Hester says, eyeing my bottle.
Not now. Not here. No way.
‘Yes, I’m having a drink after my best friend’s funeral, if that’s alright,’ I say to her.
‘Justin’s getting them to make him Negronis in there. Bletch,’ Hester says, ignoring me. ‘They taste like travel sickness medication.’
Ed realises he’s gone from one incendiary situation to an even more flammable one, if I decide to share my news with Hester, and says hastily: ‘It’s more than allowed, I might get myself another pint actually.’
‘You’re going to have a hangover,’ Hester chides.
‘Yeah well.’
I have absolutely no interest in filling the dead air that follows with chatter, though I’m aware that if it continues, Hester may fully realise she’s interrupted something. I sense Ed is grasping for something to say but that options are limited in the circumstances.
‘Hey, so – while I’ve got you,’ Hester says to me. ‘I wanted to let you know, as a bridesmaid. After thought and discussion, Ed and I are going to press ahead with the wedding on schedule.’
I reply: ‘Oh?’
‘It can be something for us to look forward to, amid all this grimness.’
‘Right.’
Like me getting thinner, the wedding is rebalancing the scales. It’s one thing to know someone’s insensitive, and another to have them demonstrate just how insensitive they can be when you’re at your most sensitive.
Ed is staring at the ground.
‘I’m going to see if Verity will take Susie’s place as bridesmaid. Don’t mention to her that Susie was the first choice at any of the fittings, will you?! I don’t want her to get huffy at being on the reserves bench. I mean, just you watch, she’s going to fight me every inch of the way on the dress design. She’s gorgeous but there is no one vainer, haha.’
I nod and drink some drink and Ed is avoiding my gaze, in new depths of torment, I’m sure.
Well, you got engaged to her.
Silence.
‘The show must go on. It’s what Susie would want,’ Hester says, catching herself, I think.
As a coup de grâce, her eyes well up with Disney tears. I can imagine a man rushing to put his jacket round her as she trembles. Ed remains frozen still.
Hester has found my breaking point. I’ve never said a word of challenge to her in all the years I’ve known her. But a dam has burst.
‘What she’d want? What she’d want is to not be a pile of fireplace sweepings in an industrial furnace in Wilford right now.’
‘Sshhhh, Christ, Eve,’ Hester looks around, eyes like saucers at my tastelessness. ‘It’s not the time for your … unique turn of phrase.’