‘Well, I’m implicated now,’ I say, interrupting, before we get into measuring of what I’m feeling versus what Hester would: ‘Because in your vows there’ll be that bit about if anyone knows any reason why these two should not be joined …’
‘You’d not be the first person to sit through that part of a ceremony and know something about the bride or groom that either one of them doesn’t.’
Ed tries for a small rueful smile, and I stare it down.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘It’s not. I’m not saying you can’t tell Hester if that’s what your conscience tells you to do. I’ve never cheated on Hester, apart from that one time.’
‘Oh, paging Pride of Britain awards.’
‘No! I mean, it’s not habitual, this isn’t the tip of an iceberg. You’re not letting another woman walk unwittingly into a marriage with King Rat.’
‘Hmmm.’
I’m not going to tell Hester. Given how little I think of her, it would be nothing but revenge on Ed, and, as my mum says, revenge is throwing piss in a strong wind. She should know.
‘Thanks for hearing me out. I know none of this is easy.’
I agree it isn’t, and feel the emptiness I knew was on the other side of this grovelling. Now what? Accept it and carry on.
Ed leans down to pet Roger, who’s winding himself round his ankles and clearly pondering a bid for Chew Stick 3: The Enfattening.
‘You’ve been off the radar a bit since the funeral … are you OK? Apart from the giant things that aren’t OK?’
I raise my shoulders and drop them.
‘Yes and no.’
Ed nods. He’s temporarily lost his rights to be emollient Ed, and he knows it. He scrunches the sides of his empty can, making a small crackling noise.
As he leaves, he says: ‘You’ll come to Justin’s birthday, though, right?’
‘Oh? Yes. Has he planned anything?’
‘Not that I know of. It’ll be low-key, obviously. As much as anything involving Justin is low-key.’
Ed smiles, clearly in relief at the status quo returning. The explosive device, defused. I don’t smile back. He knows I’m not going to tell Hester, so we’re back to how it was, except we aren’t and never will be.
‘Can you do me a favour? Don’t tell Justin we had this conversation? I’m hoping you haven’t filled him in on any of this,’ I say.
‘None of it,’ Ed says.
He looks at me and realises he can’t risk so much as a pally shoulder squeeze.
‘Bye,’ I say.
After I close the door, I feel flattening disappointment with myself, as well as him, and I know why.
I didn’t have the guts to ask: did you think I was in love with you?
23
I nail the rest of the bottle of white wine in a dark red mood.
The rain that spat at Ed earlier becomes a downpour. It’s the only thing I’m capable of appreciating, alongside a Nick Cave album, the candle I put on, and the alcohol in my bloodstream. The insistence of water hammering against the window panes is almost soothing.
It’s not lost on me that Susie would ordinarily be the one to spring me from this sort of trap. She’d survey the scene, eyes focusing on the telltale guttering Diptyque tubéreuse (too expensive to light during lesser trauma), and say:
What’s up with you? Ugh, I can’t stand that miserable singer he’s got a booming voice that sounds like he should be down Annesley Woodhouse Working Men’s Club doing ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra. ‘WHAT IS A MAN / WHAT HAS HE GOT / IF NOT HIMSELF / THEN NOT A LOT …’ Wait, did he just say he’s got the ‘abattoir blues’?’
Yup.
Who’d be happy if they were in abattoir?!
It’s a metaphorical abattoir.
He can leave it, then, can’t he. He’s what my dad calls a moaning Minnie. Oh I’m in imaginary Pork Farms, poor me.
I’d dissolve in laughter at imaginary Pork Farms and she would say where is the lie and pull her you-think-I’m-silly-well-I’m-not chipmunk face, pushing her lips out in a parodic sulk, so like petulant child Susie. I would sense how pleased she was to have amused me.
Except, even if she was here, she couldn’t fix this. Why did she do it? I know she was drunk but … had someone she knew stopped her, when her hand was in Ed’s hand, weaving in and out of the crowd in Rock City, and said ‘Oh my God, you two, together, can I tell Eve?’ she’d have said no no no don’t you dare.
Someone who can fumble with the fly on a trouser can remember who her best friend is. Alcohol doesn’t erase who you are, it gives you licence.
We didn’t knowingly hurt each other. We would never have competed for the same man. No Becky, with good or bad hair, could come between us. There were a few unspoken sacred rules, our foundation stones.
And what was with Ed giving me the come-to-bed eyes, at his words: ‘the cost of cowardice’?
If he did do that? Am I projecting? Have I been gaslit into grudge-filled madness?
The trouble is, we think of being in love, romance, in active terms – a pursuit. We’re working to outdated models. We need new concepts for modern fuckery. Ed is not in pursuit of me, by any measure, nor vice versa. Yet he’s always there. We’re forever romantically adjacent. But how do you emotionally detach when they’re one of your best mates? I don’t recall any agony aunt advice on that score.
Roger rearranges himself on my stomach as I stare at my ‘docker boots’, dangling over the arm of the sofa.
Why am I the only one clinging to the past? The only one caring? Everyone else takes what they want and moves the fuck on. Even Susie, rocketing into the afterlife.
She’s not here, worrying about anything. Her problems, old and new: the Ed secret, the antagonist brother, even her vulnerable father, they’ve all been left to me. She died ‘intestate’, as the wills and probate guy told us, but that only referred to who inherited property and money. Maybe I don’t want these burdens, Susie? Maybe I didn’t deserve them? Can’t I push the responsibility aside, like you all did?
I think these thoughts as a form of self-harm, taking a vicious comfort in the intentional cruelty. I’m angry at Susie, I realise, and not only about Ed. For not glancing the right way up a dark street, for not moving fast enough, and leaving me with this much pain. For just leaving me.
After I’ve wallowed in this, I dislike myself.
If my life was a box set drama, I guess this would be the moment a portion of the audience would say: I tried to get into it, but she was so self-pitying, you know? Ugh, your friend is killed, but you’re the unlucky one? (Or maybe they’d have bailed after HasPubesGate. ‘Can’t cope with cringe comedy, two stars out of five.’)
I’m seized by an urge to do something destructive, and definitive … The letters and diaries? Eighty-five per cent of me says: yeah do it, get rid of them. Fifteen per cent of me whispers nervously: you can never undo this decision.
The eighty-five per cent bellows back: yeah there’s a lot that can’t be undone, haven’t you noticed that? At least if this is a mistake, it’s one I bloody chose and controlled. Instead of being Fate’s pinãta.