Another long silence.
‘I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough,’ I said. ‘What do you mean, “We had too much to drink and . . . well”? Getting drunk and having sex are not interdependent, you know. ’
‘Stop trying to catch me out with your long words,’ Jo muttered.
‘Oh, behave yourself.’
She sighed. ‘It was the night we all came here for dinner,’ she said, not quite meeting my eye. ‘That ramen you made, Sarah. You went to bed, all upset because of Eddie, and I went home. Then Zoe broke the news to Tommy and he stormed out of the flat, but after a few minutes he realized he had nowhere to go. So he called me, rather than storm right back inside. Got an Uber.’
A smile I wasn’t used to illuminated a corner of her face. She looked at him, perhaps torn between the need to respect his privacy and to say this out loud. To confirm the affair.
I looked at Tommy. ‘So you got in a taxi to Bow and, I mean, were you planning to . . .’ I trailed off. I couldn’t even say it.
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘Not at all. But that doesn’t mean I regretted it,’ he added, when the smile slid from Jo’s face.
‘I see. So . . . is this a – a fling? Or a thing?’ I asked.
There was a very long silence. Then: ‘Well, I love him,’ Jo said. ‘But I can’t speak for Tommy.’
Tommy looked up sharply. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You heard what I said,’ she snapped. She furiously zipped and unzipped one of the pockets on his ski jacket. ‘But that’s by the by. The reason we didn’t tell you, Sarah, is that we haven’t told anyone. Zoe’s told Tommy he can stay here as long as he needs to – until he finds somewhere to live. She’s been staying with her fancy man at night so Tommy could tell you in his own time. He thinks she’s being really generous; I think she just can’t stand looking like the bad guy.’
After a moment’s thought, I smiled. This, at least, rang true .
‘But she’s not the issue here. It’s Shawn.’ She stopped zipping. ‘He’s the real problem.’
‘Why? What’s he done?’
‘It’s what he could do,’ Tommy said, when he realized Jo was struggling. ‘She’s worried he’ll turn the whole custody thing into a nightmare if he finds out she’s been seeing someone else. So she’s going to split up with him, sort out custody, not mention me. Then we’ll . . . well, we’ll see what happens with us, I suppose.’
Jo’s face gave nothing away, but I saw it – even through my shock, I saw it. She really was in love with him. And she had been for a long time. She was petrified this was just a fling. A rebound. The poor woman could barely meet his eye. We’ll see what happens with us was nowhere near enough for her.
Tommy, as if sensing the same, moved round the island and sat next to her. I saw her glance down as he placed his hand carefully on her leg, and something tender began to swell in my throat.
‘He’s a vindictive fucker,’ Jo said quietly. Shawn was safer territory than her feelings for Tommy. ‘I can’t let him find out.’
‘Personally, I can’t see how he’d ever get custody,’ Tommy said. ‘He’s the worst he’s ever been – not turning up to pick Rudi up from school, he’s stoned most of the time, and he even left Rudi on his own in the flat a couple of weeks ago. Rudi nearly set fire to the place, trying to make his own tea. Jo’s dad’s got Rudi tonight.’ He glanced again at Jo, but she had closed down, as she always did when she’d exposed too much of herself.
Zoe’s trendy wall clock rolled silently to 3.30 a.m.
‘So that’s that,’ Jo said, unable to bear the silence. She put her hands on the worktop, two raw little fists. ‘And I managed to bare my soul in the middle of it! Sorry,’ she said, half turning towards Tommy. ‘I really don’t mind if it’s just sex, babe. Forget the love thing. I was just being silly. OTT, you know me.’
There was an uncomfortable silence.
‘I should give you two some space,’ I said.
‘Stay,’ Jo barked.
‘OK, thanks,’ Tommy said simultaneously.
I hovered, halfway out of my stool.
‘I’m not very good at this,’ Jo said. Her face was the colour of house bricks. ‘Shouldn’t be left to my own devices. If you go, I’ll only end up saying more stupid things.’
I sat back down, sending Tommy an apologetic smile, but he was deep in thought, his eyebrows engaged in something that far exceeded my powers of interpretation. I looked away. Ran my gaze across Zoe’s collection of cookbooks aimed at uptight women. At the picture of her and Tommy working out together in Kensington Gardens, back at the beginning of their relationship, when she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
At the end of Zoe’s road, a night bus whined up Holland Park Road. I wondered who this new man was. Where he lived. Zoe seemed impossibly wealthy to a pauper like me, but this man would blow her and her two-bedroomed flat in Holland Park out of the water. He’d be eye-wateringly rich and well connected. And – above all – right for Zoe. Right in a way Tommy never could have been, no matter how many times she forced him up the career ladder.
Eventually Tommy took a deep breath. He turned to Jo. ‘Look,’ he said quietly. ‘I do love you. I do love you, Jo. I just imagined telling you in . . . well, other circumstances.’
Jo, who I suspected had stopped breathing, said nothing. Tommy traced a finger along the edge of Zoe’s kitchen island. ‘ You’re the only person I’ve never felt self-conscious with,’ he said. ‘The only person I can talk to about anything, always. I miss you when you leave a room. Even though you call me a “privileged arsehole” too often. Even though you’re the kind of infuriating woman who makes me say these things in front of Sarah.’
Jo allowed a trace of a smile, but she still couldn’t quite look at him.
‘I thought I was happy,’ Tommy went on, ‘when I first moved in here. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy at all, and I haven’t been for years. Even as recently as a month ago, I was able to convince myself that this’ – he looked around Zoe’s immaculate kitchen – ‘this was what I wanted. It’s not. What I want is to be me. In my own skin, laughing, real. I laugh until I cry with you, several times a week. I’ve never done that with Zoe.’
Jo remained silent.
‘I mean, look at my career. It was never enough for her that I was a personal trainer. I’m quite certain she only subsidized my business because she wanted to tell people her partner ran a sports consultancy.’
Jo picked at her coat, until Tommy leaned over and stopped her.
‘Listen to me.’
‘Listening,’ Jo said gruffly.
After a moment Tommy laughed. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation with Harrington in the room. This is . . . No offence, Harrington, but this is awful.’
‘No offence taken. And for what it’s worth, I think it’s lovely. If not a bit strange.’
Jo hadn’t yet relaxed. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s scary for me. I’ve . . . I’ve got more to lose than you.’
Tommy picked up one of her hands. ‘No, you haven’t. I . . . Oh, for God’s sake, will you look at me, you madwoman?’
Reluctantly, she looked.
‘I’m here , Jo. In this. With you.’
The adrenaline had wound down. Suddenly I was sitting in a room with my two oldest friends who were telling each other they were in love with each other, and suddenly it made perfect sense. I thought back to those months we all had together in California and wondered why I’d never thought about it before. Those two spent hours together, they went on trips, they surfed, they mixed hideous cocktails in Tommy’s parents’ garage. Perhaps I hadn’t seen it because I’d been too deeply buried by grief and guilt. Or perhaps it was simply because I couldn’t think of a less likely match than these two people. But love didn’t work like that, as I’d come to realize. Here they were, sneaking around: clumsy, helpless, vulnerable. In love and unable to do anything other than be together, in spite of the risks.