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‘Thank you.’
An hour later, I’m about to put Fred in the pram when a text comes in. Bella.
Can you talk?
Like oil under a lit match, my body fills with burning dread. I ring her immediately.
‘Bella?’
All I can hear is background noise: a radio, talking, the hum of a hairdryer.
‘Bella?’
The noise fades. I hear the clunk of a door closing.
‘Ava?’ She says. ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘I know. Are you at work?’
‘Yeah. I’ve come into the loo.’
I wait. A second passes, two. I hear a sniff.
‘Bella? Are you OK?’
A sob. I stay silent – it is all I can do to not speak.
‘I’m only going to say this once,’ she whispers. ‘And I’ll never say it again, do you hear me?’
‘OK.’
‘And I’m not saying it means anything, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And you can’t tell anyone I told you.’
‘All right.’
She sighs. I wait, my breath held in my chest.
‘OK,’ she says after a long moment. Another deep sigh. ‘When I got back from the salon the morning Abi… that morning, I went home to change into my trainers so I could help look.’
I nod, realise I’m holding my breath.
‘And… Neil’s clothes were in the washing machine. His overalls and that. I didn’t think anything of it, I just put them in the dryer and went to get changed. But the next morning, there was another set of clothes in there that he’d washed in the night. And I didn’t think anything of that either. I knew he’d been out and thought he must have got muddy, that’s all. I didn’t think anything of anything, I swear to God I didn’t.’ Another sniff.
‘Bella?’ I whisper, desperate to comfort her but scared of interrupting in case I frighten her back into silence.
‘OK,’ she says, her voice trembling. ‘I didn’t think anything, only a bit of surprise maybe that he’d washed his gear himself, like. But you said anything, no matter how small, and now… I mean, this year he’s not been himself at all. He never used to shout at me or anything, he was always sweet. He never used to drink during the week. I mean, I just thought it was the stress of the IVF…’
I listen, floating, unable to believe the fact of her telling me this, less than an hour after Matt. It isn’t coincidence – of course it isn’t. It is simply that the party has pulled the plug on the weird, stagnant pond of our lives, has drained the water from details half submerged, which lie now in the shallows, exposed.
‘He’s not been himself,’ Bella repeats, the words fraught with meaning. ‘It was understandable, but now…’ Her voice is little more than a squeak; the rest follows in a tearful rush. ‘Thing is, that morning, before I went to work, there were no dirty clothes in the washing basket. None. I did them at the weekend, I always do. And even if there were, Neil never washes his clothes. Never. I do them. I’m not saying he did anything, all right? But if I don’t tell you what I know and it turns out he knew something, well, I’ll never forgive myself. Never.’
‘Bella?’
The line dies. I sit back, winded, thoughts racing. I had believed, or thought it was possible to believe, that Neil had nothing to do with it. I had even got as far as the Lovegoods. But even as I think of them, the sense that I was clutching at straws grows. It was a wild hypothesis wrought from desperation, desperation not to accept a much more horrible, unthinkable possibility. Neil.
