The Perfect Girlfriend(89)

Bella and Miles, who have clearly been in deep discussion, stop and stare.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ Nate asks. ‘Why are you talking to my girlfriend?’

I shrug off his hand. ‘I’m at work. She looked like she needed a drink.’

‘You’ve broken our agreement.’

‘How? I can’t help it if you’re a passenger on this flight. Downgrade yourself to economy, if you’re that bothered. Seriously. There are loads of spare seats down the back.’

‘This is not a coincidence, and it’s bloody exasperating.’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘Believe what you like. Fate clearly has big plans for us.’

‘So you know this woman too?’ Bella asks Nate.

I answer for him. ‘Oh, Nate and I know each other extremely well.’

Tara picks this moment to join us. Behind her right shoulder is the actor.

‘Sorry,’ I say, before he can speak. ‘It does take a few minutes for your screen to spring back to life. I’ll check again in five minutes.’

He looks as though he wants to ask for something else, but then seems to decide against it. He makes his way into a toilet instead. We are all silent until the lock clicks shut. I walk over to the interphone located above the crew seat, call the supervisor and ask him to reset the defective screen. I rejoin the ever-growing group in the galley.

Tara is clinging to Nate’s arm.

‘I said I had a bad feeling about all of this,’ Bella says to Miles. ‘Didn’t I?’

He nods, avoiding eye contact with me.

‘What’s going on?’ asks Tara.

‘It’s just that he likes his girlfriends a lot younger, don’t you, Nate?’

Nate raises his hand as though he is going to slap me. Bella grabs his arm and holds it down by his side.

‘You’ll back me up, won’t you, Bella? Don’t you remember what you used to say at school?’ I mimic her voice. ‘Sticks and stones, Elizabeth. Rise above it. Sticks and stones.’

‘I thought you didn’t know Bella that well at school?’ says Nate.

‘What I said was “everyone knew of Bella”.’

Tara tries again. ‘I still don’t get what all this is about?’

‘Ask her.’ I point to Bella.

‘Oh, we teased her a bit because she slept with some boy at school when she was only fifteen. The rest of us used to pretend we had – to show off or look bigger – but she actually went through with it. That’s Elizabeth. Always had to take things a step further.’

It’s Nate’s turn to look ill.

‘Teased a bit,’ I say. ‘Horrible pictures in my desk. Constant name-calling. Tart. Loser. Trollop. Slut. Lily-No-Mates. And those aren’t even the bad ones. You used to brag about your boyfriends and how much fun you had. It was partly because of you that I thought I was doing something grown-up. Something that would make you respect me. Instead, it was the complete reverse.’

‘Oh God, don’t try to pin that one on me,’ snaps Bella. ‘You’re your own person, surely? No one forced you to do anything.’

‘You said to me that the boy would always think of me as worthless. That men didn’t marry women who were easy. But you’re wrong. He did. It was lifelong love, just like I said all those years ago. Tell them, Nate. Tell them about our wedding.’

There is silence. Everyone looks at him. He doesn’t speak, he just stares at me, as if believing that, if we all stand here long enough, the surreal encounter will end, and he will wake up in some five-star hotel with nothing too taxing to start his day other than where to go for a jog, or what to eat for breakfast.

‘Marriage?’ says Bella. ‘And back then . . .? Oh. God.’ She puts her hand over her mouth and shakes her head, as though it’s all too much to take in. ‘Nathan?’

Tara finds her voice too. ‘Married?’ Tara adds, ‘To her?’

I notice that she has let go of Nate’s arm.

‘No. Yes. Not exactly. That’s why I never mentioned it. It was a Vegas thing. It’s being annulled.’

‘It doesn’t alter the fact that it happened,’ I point out.

The toilet door unlocks. We all fall silent as the actor emerges.

‘Your screen should be fine now, sir,’ I say, struggling to remember his name. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

He appears to survey the scene in front of him and shakes his head. ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’ He disappears.

‘So,’ says Tara. ‘Let me get this all straight in my head—’

Miles leaps in. ‘It appears to me as though Nathan and Juliette have a lot of unfinished business to discuss. How about we leave them in private for a while?’

Bella agrees. Of course she does. Now that she realizes that she was bullying me over the actions of her own brother, she can’t wait to get away, to piece back the memories with her new-found knowledge. I can imagine her reframing them, still trying to make out that she wasn’t that bad. Tara, however, is less keen. She shakes her head when Bella tries to guide her out of the galley. She stays put, flicking her hair a couple of times.

Nate walks over to the bar and helps himself to a miniature bottle of cognac. He doesn’t bother with a glass but tips the bottle directly into his mouth. Both Tara and I watch him gulp. He exhales, places the miniature on the side and runs his hands through his hair.