The Friends We Keep(86)

“That’s definitely true. I’d make a great fertility symbol.” Evvie pouted and posed as Topher shook his head.

“No more putting yourself down, Evvie.”

“Doing my best,” she said.

“Meanwhile,” said Maggie. “Why am I the only one getting a hard time about cooking delicious food? Those American breakfasts of Evvie’s are insane. I’m sure that’s why I’m putting on weight.”

“Don’t blame me,” said Evvie. “That’s only on weekends. You’re making something delicious for tea every day. Can’t we just have a cup of tea with no food?”

“I can’t do that.” Maggie feigned shock. “You can’t have a cup of tea without biscuits, at the very least. It’s against the law over here.”

“You know what you two should do? You should open a café together.”

Maggie and Evvie both turned to look at him in delight. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” they both said at exactly the same time before they started laughing.

“Can you imagine?” said Evvie. “We’d have so much fun!”

“It would be a crazy amount of work but I’d love it. We could specialize in breakfast and tea!” said Maggie.

“I think you should explore this.” Topher pointed his spoon at them. “I’m serious. It would be amazing.”

“We should explore it.”

“But not rush it. Let’s wait for the perfect place to come up, then we’ll strike!”

“Let me help you find the place. God knows there’s nothing else keeping this gay man busy. Not that I’m complaining, but where are all the gays? I haven’t met anyone since I’ve been here.”

“That’s probably because you’ve been with us the whole time,” said Maggie. “I’m pretty sure there’s an active gay community in Bath. There has to be, surely? We should Google.”

“I’m with all the people I want to be with right now.”

Maggie had sat there smiling, feeling her heart burst with love for her old friends, for her good fortune in going to the reunion, for her better fortune in picking the kind of friends that would remain true, and real, and lasting, after all these years.

In the kitchen, Maggie now sighed as she picked up the cereal bowls and mugs and put them in the dishwasher, turning as she heard footsteps and heard someone coming down the stairs.

Topher strode into the kitchen, not in jeans and a casual sweater, as he had been wearing ever since he arrived, but in full head-to-toe English country gentleman regalia.

“Are you auditioning for Downton Abbey?” asked Maggie, laughing as she put the kettle on.

“Oh, I wish,” he said, taking his phone and sliding it in a drawer as Maggie watched him.

“I just can’t anymore,” he explained. “I’m still Googling myself and I can’t stand it. I haven’t got the willpower to stay off-line, and every time I go on, I discover something else terrible that’s been written about me. I’m going off-line, and the only way I can do it is to leave my phone behind.”

“I thought everyone had forgotten about it. It’s been weeks!”

Topher shrugged. As excited as he was to be with his old friends again, to be in Somerset, to try his hand at communal living, he was still dealing with the shame of his exposure. Evvie was right, another story had broken days later, and he had been mostly forgotten (which he knew from trawling online), but when he thought about it, he felt a shudder of shame.

Terrible things had been written about him, with ghastly one-night stands coming out of the woodwork revealing that they always knew he was a liar. Most of those stories were written by people Topher couldn’t even remember.

And then there were the comments. The comments! The comments that felt like someone was stabbing him in the back. Vicious and vindictive, written by anonymous people who didn’t know Topher, but wrote as if they did. They described him as a liar, unscrupulous, someone who was ruthlessly ambitious, who would do anything to get ahead.

Topher wanted to respond, even considered creating false identities who would defend him, for so much of what he was reading was patently false, patently rubbish. But he didn’t, trying to remind himself that they weren’t people who knew him, that he ought to ignore them.

It had blown over now, but he still Googled multiple times a day.

“Would you want to act in something like Downton Abbey?” Maggie mused. “I thought you had retired from acting.”

“I have, but a sexy butler could bring me back.”

“Where did all that tweed come from?” Maggie said, eyeing him up and down. “And a Barbour and Hunter wellies too. Blimey. You really do look like you’ve stepped out of Hunting and Fishing dot com.”

“Is that an actual website?”

“I have no idea,” said Maggie. “But if it isn’t, it could be. At least you don’t have a flat cap.”

“I wasn’t going to put it on until I got outside,” said Topher, brandishing a cap from the pocket of his Barbour. “Too much?”

“Too bloody much!” yelped Maggie, giggling, pretending to peer around him. “You don’t have a lurcher hiding anywhere, do you?” said Maggie.

“A what?”