Girl Unknown(82)

‘We kept the hospital bracelets the children wore, didn’t we, Caroline?’ I said. ‘Tiny little things – they barely fit around my finger. To think that they were once around your wrist, Robbie, and your ankle, Hols.’

Zo?, who had been silent throughout this exchange, brought her empty glass down on to the table with a hard clink. ‘Well, no one kept any mementos of my birth.’ She wore a brittle smile but her voice was barely controlled. ‘And whether Linda had a rough time at the birth or if she just breathed me out, I’ll never know.’

‘Zo?,’ I began, ‘we didn’t mean to …’

She pushed her chair back: ‘I’m going outside for a smoke.’

Chris followed her with his eyes, until Caroline asked him to pour the wine. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was bothering Zo?.

‘Is she all right?’ I asked Chris.

‘She’s fine,’ he said, sounding unsure.

Caroline sipped from her glass. Robbie and Holly were silent.

From where I was sitting, with my back to the wall, I could see Zo? through the window outside, leaning against a tree trunk, putting a cigarette between her lips. The guy from the next table was with her – I hadn’t noticed him follow her outside – leaning in with his Zippo, her hand cupping the flame as she lit up. I glanced back at Chris. He hadn’t noticed.

Our conversation had moved on to our college days by the time she returned, smoothing the folds of her dress against the backs of her thighs, taking her seat.

‘You okay, hon?’Chris asked.

Robbie sat between them, making it impossible for any physical display of affection.

‘Fine,’ she replied, her eyes on the guy returning to his friends, tossing his Zippo on to the table and glancing at her. Chris followed her gaze. His expression darkened.

Caroline had brought with her to the restaurant the birthday cake she had purchased at the market that morning, and once our dinner plates had been cleared away, the waitress carried it out – a delicate cream-filled mille-feuille topped with candles, the lick and sway of tiny flames. We were temporarily the focus of attention in the restaurant, and to the eyes of the other diners, we might have appeared celebratory, happy even at the short burst of applause. They had no idea of the tangle of confused allegiances, the discontent crackling in the air between us.

‘I sometimes think,’ Caroline said, puncturing the air with her fork, ‘that there should be particular-flavoured cakes for particular occasions. You know, chocolate cake for anniversaries, meringue for birthdays, something fruity for weddings.’

I decided she must be a little drunk.

‘What sort of cake shall we have for our wedding?’ Chris asked Zo?, smiling across Robbie at her.

Zo? put a delicate forkful of cake into her mouth but didn’t answer. She had hardly touched her food all night.

‘Come on,’ Chris said, warming to the subject. ‘What would you like?’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered quietly.

‘You must have a preference,’ he persisted. ‘What’s your favourite?’

‘I don’t have a favourite.’

‘Chocolate or lemon?’

Putting down her fork, she said sharply, ‘I don’t even like cake.’

Without any explanation as to where she was going, she got up and left the table again.

‘Where’s she off to now?’ Chris asked, crestfallen. He turned in his seat and saw the guy at the next table calmly leaving the restaurant, Zo? turning to say something to him I couldn’t hear.

‘What the hell’s she playing at?’ he asked, almost to himself, before he dropped his fork on to the plate with a little clatter and rose from his seat to follow them out on to the square.

‘Don’t get involved,’ Caroline warned me, and for a few minutes we sat in an uncomfortable silence, while outside the window Chris remonstrated with Zo?, the guy smoking his cigarette, bemused. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could see Zo?’s cross face, her body language growing hostile. As I finished my dessert, she pulled the door open and marched back inside, Chris following. He took his seat, smiling at us all, but the redness of his cheeks betrayed his real emotions. The dude at the next table also returned, remarking to his friends in French, which set off a low rumble of mocking laughter around their table. Chris pulled at his collar. I began to feel sorry for him.

‘Shall we have coffee?’ Caroline suggested.

‘Perhaps we should just get the bill,’ I said. The air at the table was spiky now with the threat of argument.

Jealousy is a terrible thing – I know what it’s like. It’s a grotty outcrop of insecurity and need. It eats you up inside, pushes you to do and say reckless things. Chris, I could tell, was on the brink of something drastic.

‘What are you guys doing the last weekend in August?’ he said, in an important way, making it sound like an announcement.

‘August?’ Caroline asked.

‘Saturday the 29th,’ he went on, leaning forward on the table knitting his fingers together. ‘What about it, Zo??’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said sulkily, clasping her arms at the elbows and sitting back in her chair.

‘An engagement party. Something to make it all official. We can invite all our friends.’ He was smiling at her but there was hardness in his voice, a challenge in his eyes.