43
‘Something interesting on your phone? You’re engrossed,’ Sam said, watching Harriet type, before manhandling a slice of mushroom, thyme and Coppa into his mouth, with mixed results.
‘Interesting isn’t exactly the word,’ she said. ‘More astounding, yet completely predictable.’
Cal gave Harriet a brooding look.
Harriet looked back at her handset.
Roxanne
Harry, I feel awful for how that came out. You know how I am, I jump and don’t think. I’ve ended it with Jon. Can we talk? I want to make this up to you. R xxx
Harriet wasn’t sure how she felt about this: schadenfreude? Some. Mostly still pretty devastated. She forwarded it to Lorna.
Lorna
Well well well if it isn’t the consequences of Roxanne’s own actions. Hope pawning that bracelet makes it worth it. You going to reply?
Harriet
Nope. Nothing left to say, is there?
Harriet noticed that Cal’s look remained inscrutable. What did it convey …? She tried to categorise it. Wary? Almost suspicious.
‘Anyway,’ she said to Sam, turning her handset face down. ‘The situation has now concluded.’
‘That’s a hell of a yarn!’ Sam said. ‘Vivid storytelling.’
‘All true,’ Harriet said.
‘Jon’s involved, I’m guessing?’ Cal said.
‘He was.’
Harriet and Cal exchanged another atypical and loaded glance. She remembered Cal’s pact with Jon and Jon’s feverish obsession (‘when news of your marriage reaches me,’ dear lord). Did Cal think … she might get back together with him? Did Cal care?
Cal had accepted Harriet’s offer of a takeaway, with the caveat that he’d said he’d see Sam, and was it alright for him to join? Harriet said of course, after the usual ‘as long as I’m not spoiling anything more interesting you had planned’ bargaining.
‘They’ve forgotten my mozzarella sticks,’ Sam said, flipping the lids on all the boxes in turn. ‘It’s at times like this it’s lucky I’m such a spiritual person. I am able to see the bigger picture. Free pizza.’
‘You draw great strength from your faith, it’s good to see,’ Cal said. ‘I forgot to say, Harriet, I went to your friend’s restaurant! Lorna’s. The place in Headingley?’
Aye did ye now, Harriet wanted to say, waggling her specs. Cal didn’t offer who with, as Harriet expected. Maybe she was a few women ago.
‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘Great. Already making plans to go back.’
I bet you are.
‘You can take me,’ Sam said.
‘Was hoping for someone less likely to wear pool slides with socks.’
I bet you are.
‘I forgot to say, the paperwork’s finally done for my flat,’ Harriet said. ‘I move out two weeks on Sunday.’
‘Oh, right,’ Cal said. He looked vaguely flummoxed, as if he’d forgotten the imminence of Harriet vacating. ‘Thanks.’
‘We’ll stay in touch, won’t we?’ Sam said, ferreting around the garlic bread.
‘For sure,’ she beamed at Sam. Cal said nothing.
The doorbell bonged and beyond closed curtains, they couldn’t see who it was.
‘My mozz sticks! The arc of history bends towards justice,’ Sam said.
Cal went to get it and after a few seconds, Sam twitched a corner of the curtain to see who Cal was talking to.
‘Aw fuck no, it’s Kit.’
Sam slumped down in his seat as Harriet sat up straighter.
‘I wonder what she wants?’ Sam said. ‘Apart from Cal’s balls and soul trapped in a haunted jam jar.’
‘Look, I’ll prove it to you,’ Cal said, entering the room with Kit in tow. She was in a turtleneck jumper and slim-cut trousers and looked, as per, like a bonsai supermodel.
‘Hiiiii everyone,’ she raised a palm. ‘Hold on, it’s my best man, my photographer and my groom. Is the vicar in the kitchen, flipping pancakes?’
Harriet knew Kit to be terrifying, but she had to admit: stylishly so.
‘There,’ Cal produced his phone from the far corner of the room and flashed the screen at Kit. ‘Missed and unread WhatsApps from you.’
He threw it down on the sofa, next to Harriet, and Kit glared at the phone and then at Harriet, before tossing her hair and looking back to Cal.
‘Alright, I accept you didn’t get my news.’ She addressed the room. ‘Come to say goodbye. Got a job in Qatar.’
‘Congrats,’ Sam said, flatly. ‘And goodbye.’
‘Congratulations,’ Harriet mumbled, as Kit stared at her as if it was required.
‘I didn’t mean you; I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘All I know about you is you treated my so-called wedding day like it was the search-engine function on fucking Gumtree.’
‘Don’t pick on her, she’s done nothing wrong,’ Cal said, hotly.
Nevertheless, Harriet squirmed at Kit having a point.
Cal and Kit moved to the hallway where they had a muttered conversation, which Sam accompanied by extravagant eye rolls and a ‘yanking noose to neck’ gesture. Harriet sensed both her and Sam were listening for any audible clues about what was happening while also trying not to listen in, and find their own conversation, and therefore failing on all three fronts.
‘Another beer anyone?’ Cal put his head round the sitting-room door, after they heard the front door close. ‘Sam? Hats?’
‘Taking it easy, thanks,’ Harriet said, holding up her tea, liking her new nickname status.
‘What was that about?’ Sam said, jerking his head towards the window.
‘I was having it gently broken to me that Kit is now with Sebastian,’ Cal said. He pointed at himself. ‘This is my surprised face.’
‘Haha. What did she think you were going to say to that?’
‘I have no idea. I think Kit always has to win, and in her mind, that was her winning.’
‘Chilling. Wish she had been a mozz stick. Beer would be welcome, ta.’
Cal withdrew. Kit’s car had yet to accelerate away. Cal’s phone, next to Harriet’s leg, lit up with another WhatsApp.
Kit
If you want me to accept we’re over for good, maybe you should stop sleeping with me? Just a thought
Harriet gulped. Oh wow. His love life was even more tangled than she thought? Her stomach churned and her heart rate jumped: she felt so old, and so square, for this not being a thing she even considered could be happening. But Kit was with Sebastian? Exactly how labyrinthine was this bed-hopping?
She raked back over everything Cal had said about the severing of the ties with Kit and wondered if: oh, but I totally still slide her one from time to time! That’s life! was always unspoken likelihood among the Gatsbys. Every time she thought she had the measure of Cal, he changed and moved. She had to let her idea of him go – it was partly a fantasy, yet one that had taken quite deep root.
When Cal returned, he picked his phone up, paused for a second, stabbed some sort of riposte into it and then stuffed it firmly out of sight. He squinted at Harriet as he sat down, but said nothing.
No sooner had they agreed to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious, when the doorbell went again.
‘When did we get so popular?’ Cal said, sighing.
He got up to get the door and after a brief conference she couldn’t hear, called: ‘Harriet. It’s for you.’
Harriet got to her feet with a frown and as Cal passed her at the sitting-room door, she caught an unsettled look on his face. She returned his look, unable to ask, ‘Who is it?’ without being overheard.
It couldn’t be Jon, or Scott, as she instinctively knew Cal would’ve stayed by the door if so. The thought gave her a pang of adoration, which she acknowledged and forced herself to dismiss.
Outside, stood a young woman. She was probably eight stone wringing wet, which she was, even though the rain had stopped a while ago. Her delicate features were framed and anonymised by the tight hood of an elasticated khaki cagoule.
‘I’m really sorry to turn up on you like this. He checks my phone and my Uber history, so it was a bus or nothing. I did think about calling you from a telephone box but the one nearest was full of dog piss and I don’t have a burner phone like a drug dealer. Then I thought, I don’t have your number anyway! What a twat. Sorry, I talk a lot when I’m nervous. I hope you don’t hate me, because I’ve got nowhere else to go for the next two hours. Your boyfriend seemed a bit dubious! Fair enough.’
She pulled her hood down, revealing damp blonde hair.
‘I should’ve said. It’s Marianne.’