Seven Days of Us(87)
“Tant pis. Not your fault.”
“OK, bye, everyone,” said Phoebe, from the doorway. She had her coat on, and was pushing heels into an overstuffed bag of clothes.
“Ought you to wear those, with your foot?” said Emma.
“Mummy! I’m twenty-nine! It’s fine. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Won’t you just stay for a glass of champagne?”
“Can’t, I’m late,” said Phoebe. “You have mine. Plus I don’t want to get there pissed. I’m a cheap date,” she added to Jesse.
“It’s ’cause you’re, like, a size two,” he said, and Phoebe looked pleased, as if he’d said the right thing in their private script.
“Right, happy New Year’s, guys,” said Phoebe, blowing kisses. “See you tomorrow. I don’t intend to get up till midday.”
She looked so excited that Emma tried not to mind as the front door slammed, jolting the William Nicholson prints on the wall.
“Aaaargh, gotta love the King,” said the DJ, as Elvis came to an end. “Now we’re going to the news, before my next guest, dance maestro Bruno Tonioli.”
The news jingle played, and Andrew released her.
She stood washing her hands at the sink, while Andrew went back to the chicken.
“Sean Coughlan, the Irish pediatrician diagnosed with Haag virus, has died in hospital,” read the woman’s expressionless voice. Emma froze, her hands under the too-hot water. “It is thought he developed an infection, following his removal from isolation on Thursday. A full postmortem will not be carried out until next week. Coughlan was thirty-three and is believed to have contracted Haag after visiting a primary school, as part of a campaign to educate local children about the disease. Although he subsequently tested negative for the virus, which attacks the immune system, he is said to have been very weak. Tributes have been paid by family, friends, and colleagues to a courageous young man who will be much missed. This is the first death of a British aid worker following the Haag crisis. His family have appealed for privacy.”
Emma took the stairs two at a time, cursing the house for being so tall. She shouted, “Wiv!” before she was even close, but there was no reply. When she reached the spare room, she saw Olivia lying facedown on the bed, her shoulders shaking, silently. She sat beside her, saying nothing, just stroking her broad back and her mousy-colored head. It was the only way she used to be able to get Olivia to sleep when she was a baby. She couldn’t tell if Olivia even knew she was there. “I’m so sorry, darling,” said Emma eventually. “I’m just so sorry.” She knew it sounded hopeless. Olivia didn’t reply or look up. But after a second she shifted minutely closer to Emma’s thigh.
Phoebe
FLAT A, 29 BURY STREET, DALSTON, 7:30 P.M.
? ? ?
“I’m still in shock that he’d do that,” said Lara, topping up Phoebe’s prosecco. “Just piss off, after he proposed. It’s psychopathic.” Phoebe had given Lara a gabbled account of the week in quarantine, while she did her makeup and Lara smoked out the window. Even in Lara’s disconcertingly adult flat the evening felt nostalgic—like when they used to sit in Phoebe’s bedroom, talking nonstop and perfecting their Amy Winehouse eyeliner. And it had become clear that Lara had never been a fan of George—despite gushing over the ring two weeks ago. Phoebe felt like an idiot for assuming everyone was jealous. Still, perhaps it was better than the pity she’d expected.
“I know,” she said. “But it’s weird, I kind of feel, just, detached already. Maybe it’s everything else going on. It’s like I don’t mind if I never see him again.”
“Really? Don’t you need some kind of ending? Or an apology?”
“I know it makes no sense. It’s like how you’d feel about someone you’d only been seeing for a while. Not your fiancé.”
“Like you weren’t genuinely that close?”
“Guess. I think I was in love with the idea of being his girlfriend to start with. And then I just got used to being a couple. Except we never really went beyond that dating level. Which was fun, in a way. But not actual love.”
“So maybe he did the right thing by ending it,” said Lara.
“Ish. He could have done it a better way.”
“Yeah, but now you can hate him for being a coward. And it’s easier to hate someone than miss them.”
“True.” Could she imagine truly missing George anyway? Wasn’t it her pride that she’d been crying for, the years wasted on an idiot?
She’d held back from mentioning Jesse’s theory. It had become habit, she realized, to censor everything she told her oldest friends about her relationship. The thought made her say it out loud, in a rush, now. She felt her cheeks flare as she did so.
“Shit,” said Lara. She turned away to tap her cigarette on the windowsill. For a moment she just inhaled and exhaled, saying nothing. Then she said, very serious: “Too bad it didn’t give him better taste in jewelry.” And then they were both giggling so hard that Phoebe had to spit prosecco into her glass, before she did the nose trick. She never laughed like that with George, she thought, when they’d both recovered and she had to repair the damage to her mascara. Perhaps she’d cared about having a boyfriend, any boyfriend, too much.