We met at work, as so many people do: 34 per cent, according to a survey I read online on a day when I’d nothing else to do. It was a Monday, and my old boss, Darren, was overly excited because his publishing house had ‘the television people’ coming in. I’d been invited to the meeting because I’d illustrated the book they were interested in, a children’s book about a little girl with anxiety who changed into a chicken whenever she got too nervous. The editor, Lucy, grabbed me as I came in. I’d made an effort for the television people, worn a nice patterned shirt and extra mascara. It was a couple of months after I’d gone freelance and I was spending too many days in tea-stained pyjamas as it was, but that morning I’d told myself that this was important. This meeting could be life-changing. Turns out that it was, but not in the way I’d expected. The project was abandoned after a couple of months. It’s tough to make it in TV, Callum always tells me. He’s one of the talented ones. Or the lucky ones.
I’d been on my own for a while at that point, after my last relationship had blown up in my face. For a while, I’d had a sense of being untethered, somehow, afloat from the world, and the freelancing actually made it worse. I was spending too much time on my own. Dad had called me a few times, but I’d stopped picking up. He only ever wanted to talk about Mum, and I found it too painful. So I was in a bit of a strange mood the day I walked into the meeting.
‘They don’t pay their taxes. You shouldn’t buy from them,’ was the first thing he ever said to me, nodding at the takeaway coffee I was clutching in my hand, wrinkling his nose at the branded logo on the side. His expression, when I glanced up at him, was deadly serious, and as he frowned at me I felt momentarily panicked.
‘No, I know,’ I said hurriedly, ‘it’s just it’s the only place on my way in, you know, and I don’t function very well without coffee! But you’re right, I should make it at home and bring it in. It’s just I’ve only started freelancing recently so I wanted to feel part of the real world again, you know, and…’ I’d tailed off, blushing, wondering why on earth I was telling him all the boring elements of my sad little life. Around us, my former colleagues were bustling into the room in their smart office wear and heels, all of them a little bit more dressed up for this meeting than they’d normally be, all of them slightly on edge. Callum had grinned at me.
‘Don’t worry,’ he’d said, ‘I won’t hold it against you. They do a good gingerbread latte at Christmas, so I’m as guilty as you are.’
I’m as guilty as you are. The words come back to me now, buzz in my head like flies.
He pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, placing a pile of papers on the huge boardroom table. We were on the fourteenth floor, the highest in the building, overlooking Ipswich. For a moment I felt a sense of dizziness, as though I was about to fall.
‘Welcome, everyone,’ the publisher was saying, his voice barely containing the obvious excitement he had that TV executives were actually in his building, in little old Ipswich, here to talk about one of his books. It so rarely happened for an independent house. There were plates of chocolate biscuits in the centre of the table, which I knew from experience nobody would actually touch. Under the table, I picked at my fingers, pulling off the skin around my nails.
‘So you’re the illustrator, huh,’ Callum said to me, his voice low as the publisher began with the niceties. Despite the large room, I felt something intimate in his voice, as though he and I were the only two people at the table. I could feel myself growing hot under his gaze, because by now I’d realised that the man next to me was, in fact, inordinately attractive. And a television exec, too. I know it sounds silly, but to me, with my little flat in Ipswich and my oh-so-fledgling freelance career, it seemed glamorous. It seemed like something I might be able to tether myself to.
We looked at their pitch for the book, and eventually someone did cave and take a biscuit from the plate, and the whole meeting lasted for about two hours, but none of those things were really very important. What was important was the sentence Callum said to me at the end, catching me by the arm just as everyone was getting ready to leave.
‘Can I buy you something other than coffee tonight?’
I didn’t notice the wedding ring until much later. OK, that’s a lie. I did. I was as guilty as he was.
‘Caroline?’
Jenny’s voice is edged with accusation and I take another sip of wine, even though I’ve barely eaten any of the pasta she’s made and my head is beginning to feel fuzzy.
‘I haven’t seen him, Jen,’ I say eventually, meeting her eyes. Her own gaze narrows and she tilts her head to one side, as though trying to work out whether I’m telling the truth or not. In the background, I hear Eve begin to cry again, and the sound of Rick shushing her, his voice low and deep. He’s there for her, I think, he actually wants to be here with his family. I don’t know what that’s like.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ she asks me, and I feel a flash of anger. I’m not a naughty child, being held accountable for my every move.
‘I haven’t seen him for two weeks,’ I say eventually, and the pain of the words is just as deep, just as fresh as it felt when I walked away from him. ‘I just – I can’t do it any more.’ Of course, I’m not telling her the whole story. I’m not telling her the depths of his betrayal. I can’t bring myself to talk about it.
Jenny’s face softens, and she reaches out a hand to where mine is clenched on the table. My fist is tight, tense from thinking about our last encounter. The way he went back on his promise.
‘Keep it that way, Caro,’ Jenny says to me, stroking her thumb against the back of my hand. It feels nice, comforting. ‘You’ve got to remember – he wasn’t yours to have in the first place.’
I stiffen. ‘I know that, Jenny,’ I say to her. ‘You don’t need to remind me.’
Rick comes back into the room and we spring apart from each other as though we’ve been caught doing something illicit. I wonder how much she’s told him, whether they discuss me when they’re tucked up in bed at night. You won’t believe the mess Caroline’s got herself into now… Jenny takes her hand from mine. Rick kisses her as he walks past, and I feel it again, the pang of jealousy. I want to be like that – wholesome, motherly, someone worth something.
Things are slightly strained for the next hour of the evening, but gradually, we pull the conversation back around, and by the end of the night it’s as though our chat about Callum hasn’t happened at all. I force myself to let them talk me into the thought of a dating app, pasting a smile on my face so that they don’t think I’m a bad sport. The sides of my cheeks begin to ache from the effort.
It’s as I’m getting my things together that it happens. I’m slightly tipsy by this point, preparing myself for the walk home, struggling a little to pull on my left shoe. It’s Rick who answers the phone, and at the sound of his words I tense, feel my breath hold still in my chest. People’s voices change when they get bad news. Jenny has been stacking our wine glasses and plates into the dishwasher, but she stops suddenly as Rick turns to us, his face slack and white.