Roger shifts some more. ‘I don’t think…’
‘Don’t you? Oh, I do, actually.’ Carole stands straighter and looks ahead of her as though she’s addressing a large room of conference delegates. ‘Roger and I got married twenty-eight years ago today. As in, today is our wedding anniversary. We arranged to meet here, under the clock, to go for a special dinner. Roger got here early.And so did I.From the opposite direction. Sad old loser that I am, I tiptoed up behind him to surprise him with a hug and a kiss. And it turned out that he was on the phone. Talking very sexually, shall we say. Would anyone like to guess who he was on the phoneto?’
We all shake our heads mutely. This is awful but I don’t have the words to halt it, and apparently the others don’t either. And maybe Carole needs this, so maybe we shouldn’t try to stop her, anyway.
‘Roger, would you like to tell them?’
Roger mutters that he wouldn’t and do we really need to do this.
‘He was on the phone to my best friend,’ Carole informs us, very loudly and very clearly. ‘Such a cliché. Apparently they’ve been having an affair.’
Roger suddenly finds his voice. ‘In my defence, you’ve been working very long hours and she wasthere.’
We all stare, wide-eyed, as Carole replies, ‘I’ve been working hard to fundourlives. Remember how we had to have a nanny because you were too busy playing golf to look after our children? And shagging Samantha too, obviously.’
‘Yes, well, I’ve said I’m sorry.’
‘Oh well that’s alright then.’ There’s a long, nasty, nasty pause, and then Carole suddenly bursts into huge, wracking sobs. Nadia and Ruth shake off their horror-struck musical-statue look and converge on her and hug her.
‘You absolute tosser,’ says Bea. There’s something very powerful about swearing from someone of a generation that doesn’t swear as much as subsequent generations do. Also, she isn’t wrong. What an arse.
‘In your defence?’ joins in Nadia. ‘Really?’
‘My husband worked very long hours,’ says Bea. ‘And I hadn’t been attracted to him for years. And I did not play away.’
‘Well now Idostill find Carole attractive.’ Roger says it like he’s paying her an actual compliment.
Carole lifts her head from Bea’s shoulder to say, ‘Oh, fuck off.’
‘Carole, I’m so deeply sorry.’ The words feel so inadequate but I want her to know how much I feel for her, how much any right-thinking person would.
‘Er, solidarity?’ Roger gives me a despising you’re-letting-down-the-brethren look. I ignore him.
Ruth hugs Carole more tightly. ‘Carole, would you prefer to continue to discuss this with Roger or perhaps stay here with us and ask him to take a few steps away?’
‘Away.’
I look at Roger and indicate with my head that he might like to move a few steps to his left.
He shakes his head and pulls a small box out of his pocket. ‘Carole, I bought you an anniversary present.’ He opens it and tries to show it to her. ‘Earrings, look.’
‘Give them to Samantha,’ Carole says, very quietly and quite magnificently.
Roger looks genuinely confused. ‘But her ears aren’t pierced.’
As the rest of us draw Carole away from him and turn our backs, I see that Nadia has one arm round Carole’s shoulders and her free hand clamped over her mouth and am pretty sure that, like me, she’s almost laughing in shock at Roger’s incredible behaviour but very aware that she cannot actually allow a laugh to escape.
‘Carole, I am so deeply sorry,’ says Ruth. ‘We’d like to keep you company if we may. I promise we won’t talk about our engagement again.’
‘No, please do.’ Carole sniffs. ‘I’m happy for you. I’d like to be distracted by nice things before I think about sorting out the shit show that’s my life. Divorce. I’ll have to fucking pay him alimony, I’m guessing.’
‘One of my sons is a divorce lawyer,’ says Ruth. ‘Ferocious, apparently. We’ll get him involved.’
‘Thank you.’ Carole manages to smile a little. Then she physically shakes herself and says, ‘Tell me more about your children.’
‘Well.’ Ruth launches into a description about the lawyer and her other son (a doctor) and the three other women listen to her, interjecting sometimes, while I surreptitiously check my phone to see if Lola’s been in touch. Nope. Nothing.
There’s still no real update on social media or the news outlets about what’s going on here, either.
