35
‘No!’ Gina exclaimed, in a tone of bare denial. Then, ‘No?’
‘I know it sounds unhinged. I can’t shake it. It’s like I flipped the telescope round and I’m seeing everything differently. The restaurant, the scarf, in the episode? Not only did Joe do that – at Sesso, two years ago, your birthday if you remember, Gina? He went back on foot to get it, then walked home. He had a shower when he got in. He never showers before bed. That night he dreamed up the first scene of cheating sex drama Hunter, and yet nothing like that actually happened?’
No one knew what to say, which was understandable.
‘Rosh, I am absolutely dying for a wee, I’ve got to go to the loo, but promise me nothing major can be discussed until I get back,’ Gina said eventually.
‘Promise,’ Roisin laughed, as Gina pushed out her chair.
‘Did you ever get this feeling about Joe before Hunter?’ Meredith asked.
‘No, never, to be fair.’
‘That suggests it’s more likely you’re seeing Television Joe humping lots of actresses, at a time he’s upset you, and it’s affected you?’
As ever, Meredith was too deft to say: ‘affected your judgement.’
‘I know that’s the obvious conclusion. I stand on the outside of this, and I think I’m being ridiculous. Then my gut carries on stubbornly saying: he’s done it himself, and this is the cockiest move in the history of cocky moves. The lines about how monogamy is an imposition, and he doesn’t feel any guilt. How he and “Becca” have a great relationship and it makes no odds to her because he’s not got feelings for these women. How it’s ethical infidelity. Meredith, I can imagine Joe saying those things.’
‘Can you? I always thought of him as a one-woman man, not someone with a wandering eye at all.’
‘Mmmm. Yeah. Always judgemental of Matt’s lifestyle, I suppose.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Jasper Hunter presents as a one-woman man to the world, doesn’t he?’ Roisin persisted. ‘In fact, the whole point is he insists he IS one. He’s in love with Becca – he doesn’t see that love is contingent on not having sex with other people.’
‘But … it’s make believe …?’ Meredith gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I wouldn’t have seen the similarities if I hadn’t confronted Joe. He was a barrage of cutting remarks and dismissals, no shame. I’m scared that Joe lies fluently and constantly, without breaking a sweat. Which is terrifying, frankly. Who have I gone out with, all these years? How did I miss it?’
Gina returned, scraping her wrought-iron chair back across paving slabs, and said, ‘Joe wouldn’t do that to you, I don’t think. I can’t see it. If you knew for sure he hadn’t, would you stay together? Are you two completely, definitely, done?’
It was a good question. Roisin had expected it and still didn’t have an answer.
‘I think so. I don’t know. When I told him it was over, I hadn’t formed my shagger suspicions. I only knew he has turned into someone quite ruthless and remote …’
Roisin had to stop talking as her voice caught. He’d been the body on the other side of her bed since she was twenty-three. Ending it felt huge.
‘… It’s only afterwards that this idea of his secret rampant infidelity has been eating away at me. I have to know if I’m right.’
‘… Do you?’ Meredith said gently. ‘If you think it’s over, even if he hasn’t cheated, does it matter? I mean, obviously, it matters. But it won’t change anything?’
From their concerned faces, Roisin could see Meredith and Gina, in a very caring way, thought she’d temporarily lost her mind. Perhaps she had.
‘It matters, full stop,’ Roisin said. ‘I have to know if my life wasn’t the life I thought it was. I have to know if I’ve been made an idiot. I have to know who Joe is.’
‘You think there’s a way to make him confess?’ Gina said.
‘Hah – I don’t think there’s a way to get Joe to do anything. But Hunter’s a detective, right? Why don’t I Hunter the clues I’ve been given? Starting with the smoking scarf.’
Gina paused. ‘Ask them in Sesso if Joe came in two years ago and had sex with one of the waitresses?’
‘No! Well. I guess sort of, yes?’
A silence settled over them.
‘A few questions …’ Meredith said, in the voice of timid officialdom, and they met each other’s eyes and started laughing. ‘Why would a waitress who’s slept with a customer’s boyfriend tell you she had done it? I see lots of downsides, from her perspective,’ Meredith said.
‘She wouldn’t,’ Roisin said, taking a swig of wine. ‘I’ve not got as far as strategy. Give a girl a chance.’
‘Can I ask a stupid question?’ Gina said.
‘It almost certainly isn’t stupid,’ Roisin said.
‘Why would Joe do this? If he is messing around, surely the last thing he’d do is write about it and put it on the TV for all of us to see?’
Meredith nodded. ‘That’s what I can’t get past.’
‘The mad titillation of parading it and hiding it, at the same time?’ Roisin said. ‘Why does anyone go bet their whole monthly earnings at Paddy Power? Much like the sex he’s writing about, the whole high is in the risk of being caught. I mean, the blatant nature of it is the mindfuck here, isn’t it? If you say: “He can’t have done it because he wrote about it”, then you’re also confirming that writing about it is a rock-solid alibi. Which is exactly the kind of trap Joe loves designing.’
‘I see that,’ Meredith said slowly, ‘while still thinking it’s a huge reach that turns Joe into a crazed super villain. I think he has behaved very badly, but the crime isn’t playing away.’
‘Yes. I’ve never got “cheater” from Joe at all,’ Gina said, face propped on palm.
‘Plus, bluntly, before he miraculously pulled you, I never thought of him as very confident with women?’ Meredith said. ‘He was always quite shy at Waterstones.’
‘That’s true,’ Roisin said, remembering the flash of self-assurance in his asking her out. ‘But maybe the reason I never sensed it is because I think of affairs as perfume on his collar, texts to a secretary kind of cliché. An affair with an interpersonal dimension. If it’s random bangs in bog stalls, how would I know? He’s had years of working from home and teachers have totally inflexible hours.’
‘Wow. I need to clear the plates and get the cheesecake, but I need my mind to stop being blown first,’ Meredith said.
‘I’ll do it, Mer, you cooked. Oh God …’ Gina said, as she stood up. ‘I know how you could find out things about behind the scenes at Sesso.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah. What did Joe call Matt? Mr Staff WiFi? Send Matt to talk to the waitresses. You’d probably have the code to the safe by the end of the evening.’
Roisin’s skin tingled. Gina was on to something. Roisin had come out tonight with a gaudy suspicion and no way to implement an investigation. But here was Gina, dropping an obvious first step in her lap.
Also, the spectre of Matt McKenzie had been raised and both Roisin and Meredith fell quiet, deferring to Gina to either continue, or drop it.
In the glittering late twilight, a couple of bats scudded about in the blue-dark above them, and they waited.
Gina abandoned the crockery and sat down again. She sighed heavily, raised her eyes to meet theirs. ‘Do you know there’s a word in Papua New Guinea –Mokita?’
There was a beat of silence, after which Roisin and Meredith howled with laughter.
‘Never, ever change, Gina,’ Meredith said, when she could get her breath back, and Gina looked confused but pleased.