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‘Something like that,’ Minnie said.
The line was silent for a moment, then Quinn spoke.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t called you, I know I should have. I’ve … none of this isn’t straightforward for me.’
His voice was awkward, embarrassed. Minnie squeezed an earlobe with her free hand, the pressure distracting her from the horrible realisation of what she had suspected.
‘Why are you being like this?’ she said quietly. ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought.’
‘Minnie,’ his voice softened, ‘I … ’ He let out a sigh. ‘I can’t just jump into something like this. I’m not sure I can handle disappointing someone again, and I know I can’t be what you need me to be.’
‘How do you know?’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. ‘I don’t want you to be anything.’
There was silence on the line. She thought maybe he’d gone.
‘I’ve already disappointed you. I can hear it in your voice.’ They were both silent for a moment. Minnie stood shaking her head. ‘Please don’t think it’s you, Minnie, you’re so … ’ Quinn took a sharp inhale of breath. ‘Do you remember that penguin we heard about at the zoo, the one in Japan who was in love with the cardboard girl?’ His voice sounded hoarse, broken.
‘Yeah,’ Minnie said, closing her eyes.
‘Well, I’m the cardboard girl. I don’t have the capacity to be a living, breathing penguin. I think Lucy was right – in what she wrote about me.’
Minnie felt tears welling in her eyes and she wiped them away furiously; she didn’t want the others to see her crying. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other at the ponds?’ he said softly.
‘I don’t think so, Quinn.’
She hung up the phone and gritted her teeth, willing the tears not to come. She took a minute to compose herself and then headed back towards the house. At least she knew now, at least there was no more deluding herself, no thinking of excuses for why he’d gone quiet. A cardboard girl was definitely not someone to weather the storm with.
She walked back over to the others and handed Tara the phone as cheerfully as she could. She got through tea and then, finally, once Fleur had finished setting up Tara’s blog and shown her how to use it, they were able to leave. As Tara thanked them and said goodbye at the door, she pulled Minnie aside.
‘I know I’ve made life difficult for him, poor boy,’ Tara said, her voice shaking. ‘I tried not to lean on him so but … when I was at my lowest, I didn’t even realise I was doing it.’
Minnie squeezed Tara’s hand. She didn’t know what to say. Tara pulled Minnie into a hug and spoke quietly in her ear. ‘Don’t give up on him, Minnie. You’re what he needs, I can see it.’
Minnie didn’t want to tell her that it was too late, she had already given up.
New Year’s Eve 2019
‘Where have you been hiding, Quinn? I’ve hardly seen you all night.’
Lucy walked towards him, her hips swaying hypnotically as she sashayed across the room in stiletto heels. She planted a firm kiss on Quinn’s lips then took him by the elbow, escorting him over to the far end of the room, away from the volume of the band. The party was in full swing; there were over two hundred people here. Quinn didn’t know he had this many friends. Lucy had arranged it all – the venue, the band, the private catering.
‘Have you talked to Rupert yet?’
‘Rupert … ’ Quinn’s eyes hovered up and to the right betraying the fact he had no idea who Rupert was or why he was supposed to speak to him.
‘Oh Quinn,’ Lucy gave a delicate foot stomp. ‘Rupert! The Lexon guy, he’s a great business contact for you. He’s also desperate to employ me. I keep telling him I’m happy at the paper, but you never know when these contacts are going to come in useful.’
Quinn nodded, as though it had been a case of temporarily forgetting the guy’s name, rather than having no memory of the conversation.
‘Can we step outside?’ Lucy said, lifting her glass towards the balcony behind the sliding glass door. Quinn pulled thedoor open and a sharp blast of cold air hit them both. He took off his jacket to wrap around Lucy’s shoulders.
‘Listen, I know we said we wouldn’t talk about it tonight, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Carol said,’ Lucy said, hugging his jacket.
Carol was the relationship counsellor Lucy and Quinn had been seeing for the last month. Lucy’s idea. She decided Quinn had a ‘fear of intimacy, stopping him from taking their relationship to the next level’. She thought he needed therapy to ‘unpack unresolved issues about his childhood’. This was the problem with the internet; everyone fancied themselves amateur psychologists.
He and Lucy had been together for a year and three months. Lucy expected ‘I love you’ by six months, preferably three. Fifteen months meant there had to be something wrong with him. She had said it at six, to the day. He didn’t know many women who would drag someone to couples therapy just to get him to say those words, but she clearly thought he was worth trying to fix. Lucy was solutions-based; it was one of the things he liked about her.
The therapy with Carol was a warning siren pulsing through his temple, yet for some reason he had muted the sound for over a month. Why hadn’t he just ended it? He would never have tolerated such scrutiny or interrogation from past girlfriends. One answer could be that he did in fact love Lucy; perhaps he didn’t want to leave? She was beautiful, bright and confident – what was not to love? She had even been accommodating about his aversion to phone calls, something other women had never been able to tolerate. Shedidn’t need him, she wanted him – it was a dynamic that worked.
