Page 94 of Not in a Million Years

I felt my heart give a little lurch of excitement and colour spring into my cheeks. ‘He did?’

‘Yep. That night when you were off on your Friday-night-out-with-work shenanigans.’

‘So why—’

‘Why didn’t he tell you himself? Because I took evasive action, obviously.’

My heart stopped skipping like a lamb in springtime and plummeted, like a cake sinking when you open the oven door too early.

Before I could say anything, Andy went on, ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was an addict, Kate. I’m still an addict. Any excuse would do. But I knew that if I did what I did that night, all hell would break loose. There’d be no more cosy trips out to the opera for us. The Scrabble board would be seen no more. I’d have you to myself again.’

‘But I could have chucked you out. I could have blamed you, not him.’

I should have done, I realised.

‘That was a gamble I had to take,’ Andy said. ‘But I backed the right horse. And even if I hadn’t, at least I’d have got my hands on that bloody lovely nose candy.’

‘Andy.’ I looked at his familiar, wryly smiling face and it was like looking at a stranger. ‘My God. I can’t believe you did that.’

‘Addicts do some wild shit. And hey – it worked. Didn’t it?’

‘Until it didn’t,’ I said again. ‘Until we were in Alsaya, and it was just the same between us.’

‘Oh, Kate. I’ve fucked your life up good and proper, haven’t I?’

I felt a brief surge of pure, white-hot anger. Yes, you have, Andy. And then I realised that wasn’t true. There was only one person who’d let this happen, and that person was me. I could have laid down boundaries with Andy way earlier. I could have realised the consequences his addiction and our relationship would have on me, and I hadn’t. Or if I had, I’d been wilfully blind to it. I’d let my love for him – a love which, I realised now, had changed over the years into something entirely different – sweep away every shred of judgement I ought to have had.

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I reckon that’s on me. I should probably be getting home.’

‘So you should,’ Andy said with a grin. ‘If you get a hustle on, you’ll make the five thirty-seven and be back in London by half eight. You could be throwing yourself into our Daniel’s arms before yonder sun has set.’

Thirty-Seven

I didn’t do as Andy had suggested and race straight to Daniel’s. I had a long train journey to spend alone with my thoughts, and I wanted to make sure I had things straight in my head.

Of course, my mind turned, with the inevitability of a plant leaning towards the sun, to Daniel. I remembered Abbie telling me he’d always had my back and realised it was true – that the anger and resentment I’d allowed myself to build up over the years towards him had been horribly misdirected.

I’d been angry with him, when I should have been angry with Andy.

Not that it was entirely Andy’s fault. He’d been – and still essentially was – in the grip of a sickness that was bigger than him, stronger than his friends, more powerful than his desire to do the right thing or our urge to protect him. I hadn’t been able to see that, but Daniel had. He’d seen how I was allowing myself to be sucked in, taken advantage of, used by Andy for sex and comfort and a place to stay.

I hadn’t said any of that to Andy – not today and not last week, when he’d flung himself into my arms begging me to love him. I’d disentangled myself gently, told him that the decision I’d made before had been the right decision and I’d always be his friend, but I couldn’t allow myself to get drawn back into a cycle of chaos and lies and mistrust. I told him, with all the kindness I could muster, that he would have to leave – that he would have to turn to the support he got from the programme and his sponsor and his own desire to stay clean, because I couldn’t play that role in his life any more.

I was done putting him first – I had to put myself first.

He wasn’t on his own and he never would be – I, Daniel, all his other family and friends would always be there for him, picking up the pieces when they needed picking up. But I no longer believed that by giving and giving until I had nothing left to give, I could somehow save him from himself.

The realisation left me full of relief, but also strangely empty. As empty as I knew my flat would feel when I arrived home – silence filling the space where Andy’s and my voices had been, where the recording of Daniel and me pretending to have sex had been, where next-door’s music had been.

And my heart felt silent too, empty and still.

I remembered going to see Mona the previous morning, after a sleepless night which I’d spent baking cherry cake and gingerbread and flapjacks, standing on my balcony and looking out at the dark, slow-moving river while I waited for them to cook and then to cool. She’d tutted consolingly when she saw me and said, ‘When our guests complain about the jammy dodgers, I tell them that at least it means Kate’s getting a decent night’s rest.’

‘And when I can’t sleep, at least it means I get to bake for them,’ I said. ‘Swings and roundabouts, right? And there’s something about baking – it always makes me feel a bit more cheerful.’

‘Of course it does.’ She nodded sagely. ‘Cake makes everything better. Thank you, Kate, and have a good day.’

Cake makes everything better.

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