Rich would prefer to go somewhere quieter, but I don’t want to leave the airport with him, so we end up sitting in the noisy coffee shop at one end of the terminal.
He gets our coffees and a lemon muffin for me, which I appreciate because I’m starving.
‘When I reached out to you, it was for Pen. Not for any other reason.’
We sit for a while, neither of us speaking.
‘Have you thought more about coming home?’ he asks tentatively.
‘The longer I’m away, the less I want to come back.’
He looks deflated. ‘What about if you come back on a trial basis? I’ll do anything, Nella. I mean it. I will move heaven and earth.’
‘I’m not sure that’s true.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘You called her Steve Mechanic on your phone. You could have deleted the messages, but you didn’t. You could have blocked her, but for whatever reason, you didn’t want to cut her off completely.’
‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘That’s not true,’ I tell him gently. ‘You had to go out of your way to change her name in your contacts. You were definitely thinking, just not of me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I found out when I did. It’s been hard, but it would have been so much harder if we’d been engaged or married.’
‘I promise you, this was the first and only time. I was a fucking idiot. And I know that now.’
‘I’m sorry, Rich, but it’s over.’
He sags in his seat.
‘Thanks for the coffee and muffin.’
I get up and wheel my suitcase towards the tube, not stopping to look back.
Chapter 45
I wake up the next day with a series of texts from Vandi, each one getting more and more frantic. When I call her she doesn’t pick up and instead sends another text saying she can’t talk, but could I meet her in the café round the corner from her flat.
I find her at a corner table, far enough from a speaker so we can hear each other over the soundtrack of current hits that, depressingly, I’m getting too old to recognise.
‘Vand, you’re freaking me out. What’s going on?’ I ask, sliding into my seat.
‘Let’s get you something to drink,’ she says enigmatically.
She motions the waitress over, and I order a tea.
Once she’s gone, I try again. ‘Are you okay?’
She nods, then meets my eye. ‘I did something very stupid.’
‘What, worse than when you snogged Martin Thomas on our geography field trip to exotic Hindhead?’
She twists her cup of half-drunk coffee. ‘I slept with The Doll last night.’
My mouth drops open. ‘Oliver, your flatmate?’
She grimaces. ‘Yes.’
I can’t help it, but the first question I ask is: ‘Was it … delicious?’
