Just Last Night(98)

39


“Think he’s alright?” Justin says. “Are my onion pieces small enough?”

I crane over to see Justin’s chopping board. We’re making a Sunday roast while Ed is off on a “head clearing” hike.

“I think so and definitely. They’re only going under the chicken.”

“Ah, so they can soak up the chicken’s weltschmerz.”

“Do you mean schmaltz?”

“Oh. Yes. What’s weltschmerz?” Justin rubs his hands on a tea towel and picks up his phone. “A German word for a feeling of melancholy or world weariness. I wish these onions could soak that up for us.”

I laugh and return to peeling the potatoes.

Last night was pretty dour. We watched a film—All the President’s Men—and pretended to discuss Watergate when everyone’s minds were on Hestergate. Ed was understandably stilted around me, keeping his distance, while I tried to be as normal as possible to make it clear I didn’t want any rift.

Today, Ed’s spent a lot of time on the phone at the end of the garden, brow furrowed, and has now gone on a solo excursion, no doubt in a state of weltschmerz.

“I think it’s safe to say I was fully off my chanks to book a cottage break comprising the warring couple, and his secret amour, in the first wave of grief after losing a dear friend,” Justin says. “A decent set-up for a horror film.”

“I’ve enjoyed it. So has Leonard,” I say, waving my peeler at Leonard, sitting in the kitchen’s window seat.

“I take it last night’s drama between you and Ed was him declaring himself your prince and offering you his hand in marriage instead? And you saying no, thank you, you would rather marry Prince Andrew?”

“Yes, pretty much.”

“He could’ve given you the ring right then and there too,” Justin says.

“I would recommend throwing that ring into the fires of Mordor.”

“Fuck, I hope he doesn’t get back with her.”

“You think he will?” I privately and ignobly glory in the fact I can ask this, without it affecting me in the slightest. Such heady freedom.

“I dunno, but immediately propositioning you doesn’t speak well of his willingness to try being single, and there’s been an awful lot of talking to her today.”

“They own a house and a car and had booked much of a wedding. There’s a lot of disentangling.”

“I don’t think they’re debating calling the caterer, do you?” Justin says, starting on the carrots.

“You think they could come back from the Susie sex? If I was Hester I don’t think I could.”

“Hester would want to kill her,” Justin raises his knife. “But our wily girl Susie clearly anticipated this.”

“Justin!” I gasp and he guffaws.

“She’s cackling in heaven every time I drop one of these. It’s my way of keeping her with us.”

He pauses. “I don’t think Suze will be the sticking point now. I think she’d want him to get rid of us. Or at least you.”

“After the things I said to him last night, I wouldn’t blame him if he decided he’s best off choosing his relationship.”

“I’m not so big-hearted. If he gets back with her and dumps you, he can dump me while he’s at it.”

I do want to stay friends with Ed, I think. But not at any cost. A very simple-sounding idea, and yet I think it’s taken me my whole adult life to work that out. I have weathered the unimaginable loss of Susie, so far, and that has given me strength, and perspective.

“How’s it going? Something smells amazing,” Ed says, having to practically fold himself double to get through the doorway to the kitchen.

“That’s my peach cobbler,” Justin says.

“Eve, can I have a quick word? It will be quick,” Ed says, and Justin turns his back fast, before he says something caustic.

I wipe my hands on my apron and follow him outside, closing the door after myself. My God, it’s cold. Am I really going to get an official dismissal?

“I want you to know I’ve thought about everything you said. You were right. I did, without fully meaning to, manipulate you. I loved thinking you were in love with me, I encouraged it, and I never asked myself if it hurt you. I purposely blurred the lines between friendship and fancying and us being in love, because it felt good, and so I thought it was benign.”

He takes a deep breath and I see he’s teeth-rattlingly nervous.

“Then with me and Hester falling apart, and the thought of you off with that good-looking bastard last week, it started to torture me. It dawned on me”—Ed points into the middle distance—“halfway across that field, right now, while I was humping the fence, trying to haul myself over—my feeling like a complete nervous wreck when you were in Scotland, losing my appetite, the whole nine yards. That’s what I’ve been putting you through all this time.”

I smile. “Mainly hung on to my appetite, but more or less.”

“Last night I said sorry, but only in a defensive way. It was the first time I’d been confronted with how I’ve behaved, and my instincts were to deny and deflect. But one thing I didn’t lie about was you being my best friend. The timing of telling you, that had a motive I hadn’t examined, maybe, but it’s true for me. I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, I’d like to still be mates. But with zero gray area or agenda. Equally I’d understand if you don’t want to be.”