I turned away, embarrassed to look at myself. Frightened, too. I had often wondered about the degree of consciousness held by the mentally ill as they began to deteriorate. How easily could they recognize a decline? How visible was theline between fact and fiction, before it disappeared completely?
WasI unwell?
I stopped in the kitchen for a quick drink of water. My leg muscles twitched impatiently.Soon, I told them.Soon.
In the kitchen doorway, I stopped dead. What? Zoe? But she was in—
‘Jesus!’ shouted the woman in the kitchen.
I froze. The woman was naked. Another naked stranger, little more than seven hours since I’d seen the last. Synthetic orange light from the streetlamp stippled her breasts and belly as she plunged about, trying to cover herself. A stream of expletives flew from her mouth.
I turned away, covering my eyes. And then I turned back, because a slender thread in my brain was beginning to unravel:This woman is not a stranger.‘Stop looking at me,’ the woman snapped, although less ferociously now, and I felt my face slacken with disbelief as I finally recognized my oldest female friend.
‘Oh my God,’ I said weakly.
‘Oh my God,’ Jo agreed, grabbing a Bluetooth speaker from Zoe’s work surface and holding it over her pubic hair.
‘Jo?’ I whispered. ‘No. No, no. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.’
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ Jo muttered, swapping the speaker for a cookery book and then giving up completely. ‘I told you to stop looking at me,’ she added, sinking down behind the kitchen island.
I stood, paralysed, until an angry whisper rose up from the other side of the kitchen. ‘Sarah, can you please get me something to put on?’ Wordlessly I walked backwards into the hallway, where I got a coat off a hook. I handed it to her and slumped down on one of Zoe’s stools.
‘What is happening?’ I asked.
Jo stood up, pulling on what turned out to be an enormous ski jacket. She merely huffed, rolling back the cuffs so her hands could poke through.
‘Would you like a pair of salopettes?’ I asked dazedly. ‘Some ski poles? A crash helmet? Jo, whatisthis?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ she said, frowning in distaste at the coat. ‘Wealthy arseholes,’ she added, presumably about anyone who liked to ski. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m staying here,’ I said. ‘As you well know. I’m going for a run and then I’m going to the airport.’
‘It’s quarter past three in the morning!’ Jo hissed. ‘Nobody goes running at that time!’
‘You’re naked in Tommy’s kitchen!’ I hissed back. ‘Don’t start!’
Jo zipped up the coat. ‘Unbelievable,’ was all she could say.
I took a deep breath. ‘Jo, are you sleeping with Tommy? Are my two oldest friends having an affair? We’ll deal with me shortly,’ I added, before she tried to interrupt.
‘I was visiting,’ she said eventually. ‘Tommy said I could sleep on the sofa.’
‘Try again,’ I said. ‘Try again, Joanna Monk. Tommy went to bed at midnight, or so I thought. You weren’t here then. But now you are, and you’re naked, and I know how much you love your pyjamas.’
‘Oh shit,’ someone muttered. I looked up. Tommy was standing in the doorway, wrapped in his dressing gown. ‘I told you this was a bad idea,’ he said to Jo.
‘I needed a drink! I don’t drink from no bathroom taps, Tommy, you know that.’ Her voice was combative, which meant she was panicking. ‘And she should have been asleepanyway, not sneaking out for a run.’ She nodded her head at me.
I folded my elbows onto the kitchen island. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I want to know exactly what is going on here. And how long it’s been happening. And how this is justifiable when Tommy is in a long-term relationship.’ I paused. ‘Well, you too, Jo, although you’ll forgive me for caring less about Shawn.’
Tommy padded across the kitchen floor and sat at the top of the island, next to neither me nor Jo.
‘Well, you see . . .’ he began, and then paused.
The pause became a silence, which hung in the air like fog. He looked at his hands. He picked at a hangnail. He lifted his hand to his mouth and nibbled at his thumb.
‘I also want to know why I’m only finding out about this now,’ I added.
