‘It was a really awful mistake, Jack,’ I whisper, staring at my hands. ‘More my fault than yours, if it helps.’
‘Fuck that,’ he says, sharp, loud enough for me to cast a warning look towards the doorway. ‘Don’t you dare do that to yourself. I’m the one who’s been unfaithful here.’
‘Sarah’s my best friend,’ I say pointedly. ‘She’s like a sister to me. However unfaithful you feel, trust me, I’m up there with you on the feeling lousy scale.’ I swallow a mouthful of water. ‘There isn’t a pecking order for guilt here. We were both wrong.’
He falls quiet and takes a sip of his drink. From the smell wafting my way, I’m guessing it isn’t water.
‘Do you know what I hate most of all about what happened, Laurie?’
I don’t want him to tell me, because if it’s the same thing that I hate about it, then we’re both only going to feel worse for acknowledging it.
‘I hate that I can’t forget it,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Was it?’ I’m glad he doesn’t raise his eyes from his drink as he speaks, hollow, too emotional. ‘Did it … did it mean anything to you?’
His quiet, explosive question hangs there, and I swallow hard. For a while I can’t look at him, because he’ll see the truth all over my face. I know what I have to do. I’ve lied to Sarah for two years straight now. Lying to Jack shouldn’t be as difficult. It shouldn’t be, but it is. Excruciatingly so.
‘Look,’ I say, finally meeting his troubled, beautiful eyes full on. ‘I was upset and horribly low, and you were kind and lovely, because that’s who you are. We’re friends, aren’t we?’ I break off to swallow the painful tears in my throat, and he nods, his hand pressed against his mouth as I speak. ‘We’re really, really good friends, we had too much to drink, and it was Christmas, and we stupidly blurred the lines between friendship and something else. But we stopped and we both knew it was awful, and it’s done now and it can’t be undone. What good can come of letting it rip Sarah apart too? You’re sorry, God knows I’m more sorry than I’ve ever been about anything in my life, and it’ll never, ever happen again. I don’t think of you in that way and I’m damn sure you don’t harbour secret fantasies about me, either. If we tell Sarah, it’ll only be to salve our guilt. And do you think that’s a good enough reason?’
He’s been shaking his head slowly all the time I’ve been talking, his hand still over his mouth as if he feels nauseous.
‘Nowhere near good enough.’
I nod. ‘Just go to bed, Jack. Go to bed, go to sleep, and when we get up in the morning, we’re both going to get on with the rest of our lives without ever mentioning this again. Not to Sarah and not to each other.’ I take a breath. ‘Not even to a goldfish.’
He looks away from me, pushing his hand through his already messed-up hair. I’ve been flailing around so much in my own guilt that I haven’t really stopped to wonder how Jack was handling it. Not all that well, so it seems, and I almost resent him for needing me to teach him how to carry the burden of his guilt.
I sit at the table for a long time after he’s gone. I make a coffee and let it go cold as I look out of the dark kitchen window over the rooftops of Delancey Street. I think of Sarah and Jack asleep down the hall, and of my parents back at home, and my brother and Anna, his new wife, tucked up in the smart new house they bought after their wedding in the springtime.
Two, and two, and two, and me. Maybe I’ll buy myself a goldfish.
3 May
Laurie
‘It’s gone by too fast.’
We’re slouched next to each other on the sofa, Sarah and me, feet up on the scratched coffee table and wine glasses in our hands. We’re all packed up and ready to go, almost prepared to hand our Delancey Street bolthole over to its next lucky inhabitants.
‘Five years,’ I sigh. ‘You’re right. I don’t know where it’s gone.’
Sarah takes a massive gulp of wine and frowns. ‘I don’t want to leave this place. I wish we could stay for ever.’
We sit in silence and gaze around the living room, the scene of our student parties, our drunken nights, our traded secrets, our late-night laughter. We both know that we can’t stay; this phase of our lives is at an end. Sarah has bagged a new, glitzier job at a start-up cable TV station over on the opposite side of the city and commuting from here to there just isn’t possible. I’ve taken this as my cue for a shake-up too. I can’t afford to keep this place on on my own, and I’m going nowhere fast career-wise. The hotel is transient, the publishing trade resistant. I’m heading home to see my family for a few weeks, and then onwards to Thailand for a while. I know. How fabulous does that sound? I’m daunted by the idea of going alone, but spurred on by my dad’s renewed zeal for getting out there and grabbing life by the balls. My mother was deeply unimpressed when he used that very phrase; they gifted me and Daryl some money at Christmas. It’s not something they’d usually do, but they said Dad’s heart attack has given them a fresh perspective. They cried, so we did, and we both agreed to do something a bit special with the gift. Daryl and Anna are going to buy their marital bed for the new house, and I’m going to spend mine grabbing life by the balls in Thailand. I wish I could pack Sarah in my suitcase; I don’t have a clue how to do life without her next to me. At least I’ll have some respite from the malingering guilt.
‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,’ I say.
‘Fuck off,’ she mutters, starting to cry. ‘I told you not to say that.’
‘And I told you not to bloody cry,’ I say, dragging the end of my sleeve across my eyes. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’
We hold hands, really tightly.
‘We’ll always be friends, right?’ Her voice is small and shot through with vulnerability. ‘Even when you go to Thailand and join a hippy commune, or whatever it is you’re going to do over there?’
‘Even then,’ I say, squeezing her fingers. ‘How about when you become a big-shot TV presenter? Will you ditch me for your celebrity friends?’
She laughs, pretending she needs a second to think it over. She went to see the new station about a behind-the-scenes role and wound up being asked how she’d feel about taking on maternity cover for their roaming reporter. They obviously took one look at her and saw what we all see: star quality.
‘Well … I reckon Amanda Holden can hold her drink.’
I thump her on the arm and she sighs, faking disappointment.
‘Fine. I won’t ditch you, even for Amanda Holden.’ She pauses for a second. ‘We’ve had a laugh though, haven’t we?’ she says, leaning against me.
I close my damp eyelashes and lean my head on hers. ‘We have.’
‘You know what my favourite memory of you is?’
I don’t answer her, because there are tears rolling down my cheeks and my throat is aching.
‘It’s a recurring memory, actually,’ she says. ‘I like how you look after me when I’m hung-over. No one will ever hold my hair back like you do when I throw up.’