‘You broke up?’ Jeff asked.
‘A while ago.’
‘A while ago?!’ I exclaimed.
Murray’s slut era had been short-lived. He and Naomi had been together for about a year. She’d been his date to my wedding six months ago. He hadn’t exactly been on the verge of marrying her or anything, but they’d seemed… I don’t know, fine.
‘How long a while ago?’ I demanded. ‘Days? Weeks? Months? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘A few weeks,’ Murray said. ‘And it never came up.’
‘It never came up?!’ I gaped. What sort of fucking answer was that?
‘This seems like a conversation that needs alcohol.’ Jeff kissed my cheek, then got up and disappeared behind the bar.
Murray shrugged. ‘I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t important.’
I stared.
‘Not that Naomi wasn’t important,’ he said. ‘She was. Is. But it was never going to be her. There was no point sitting around waiting for it to somehow magically be her.’
I let out a breath. ‘God, Murray, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything.’
‘We could have talked about it.’
‘That wouldn’t have changed anything either,’ he said. ‘It just… wasn’t her.’
‘Please tell me your breakup speech wasn’t “It’s not me, it’s you”.’
He chuckled. ‘It was slightly more eloquent than that.’
‘I could have helped you write a speech! You know how good I am at breakup speeches.’ I had written a few for Romeos who were too chickenshit to find their own words to break up with the runner-up.
‘That is not something I am ever going to need help with.’ Murray pointed one of his horrible fries at me. ‘I can break up with women on my own, thank you very much. I’m not a coward.’
I couldn’t put my finger on why, but something about that stung.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,’ I grumbled.
‘Believe it or not, Lily,’ he said, as Jeff returned with drinks, ‘sometimes I don’t tell you everything.’
22Murray
As Lily Fireball’s producer, part of my job the next day was to shoot pick-up ITMs with her, interview moments we could splice into the edit of the Thunderdome date. As I parked my golf cart out the front of the Convent, five hours after I’d left her there, my heart was in my throat.
I’m sorry,I was terrified she was going to say.I’m still fucked up with grief, and you were there, and I made a mistake. I love you, Murray, but not like that.
‘Finally,’ she snapped, when I came in. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages.’
She was perched on the arm of the couch, on which three other eliminated Juliets were sitting. Her hair was pulled back severely, exactly as it had been the previous night. Her makeup was perfect,Blood of My Enemiesexpertly applied. She was wearing the red dress again, but it was miraculously, pristinely clean, as though I’d only dreamed shoving it off her shoulders and hiking it up around her hips in the mud and the rain.
‘I’m busy, Lily,’ I snapped back. ‘Believe it or not, my entire job does not revolve around you. Come on. Pick-ups. Move it.’
‘Later, ladies,’ she said airily to the other Juliets. ‘Don’t wait up.’
We were silent as we walked out to the golf cart. Cece was sitting on the verandah, red-eyed, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. On the lawn, two of the other women were doing yoga.
