Page 62 of The Fall-Out

‘She’s got cancer, Nome. She got a call from her doctor in Paris with some test results. She’s had to go back there and start treatment.’

‘Ro, I hate to ask this. It’s awful to ask. But are you sure?’

‘Jesus, Nome. Can’t you ever let up? Look.’

She took her phone from her bag, tapped the screen a few times and handed it to me. On it was a post from Zara’s Facebook feed – the feed I’d blocked years before. It showed Zara in what was clearly a hospital ward. She was wearing a white cotton gown with a geometric print, her shoulders resting against a blue pillow. She was wearing make-up: smoky eyes and red lipstick.

Got my slap on for the occasion, she’d written.

Wouldn’t want to frighten the nurses – or M le Docteur, who I’ve developed quite the crush on. No nail polish allowed, though – how random is that? I’m going in in fifteen minutes. They don’t know yet how much they’re going to have to take out. See you on the other side.

‘What… Do you know what kind of cancer it is?’

‘Cervix, apparently.’ Rowan took back her phone and tucked it in her bag. ‘So, you see – it feels like it might just be time to let go of the past, right? Have a bit of compassion.’

I nodded mutely. I felt almost as if I was being crushed by guilt. Even though the rational part of my mind knew full well that you didn’t develop a potentially fatal disease because your boyfriend kissed someone else more than ten years ago, I still felt responsible. And Rowan was right – I hadn’t been compassionate. My first instinct had been to doubt what Zara had said, not offer friendship and support.

Another part of me was thinking, First Andy, and now this. It’s too much, too soon. It’s not fair.

And then I realised how incredibly selfish that thought was too.

‘That’s awful,’ I managed to say. ‘Just – terrible. What can we do?’

‘Nothing,’ Rowan said. ‘She says she’ll tell us how it goes. I guess you could send her a message or something, if you want.’

Us – you. I got the sense that the ‘us’ didn’t include me.

‘Nome, I should go.’ Rowan reached over and zipped up her bag, not meeting my eyes. ‘I don’t want to get home to Clara too late.’

‘Have another glass of wine, at least.’ She’d barely touched the first one.

‘I can’t. I’m driving.’

She stood up and we looked at each other for a moment, then stepped closer and touched each other’s shoulders in something that should have been a hug, but wasn’t. I fetched her coat and we said goodbye at the front door, watching as she climbed into her battered turquoise car and drove away.

Then I went back inside, looked at the undrunk wine and the untouched brownies and threw myself down on the sofa, and burst into tears.

TWENTY-THREE

SUMMER 2011

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as horrible as I did that Sunday morning. I had a hangover, obviously – not the worst one ever, but a strong contender. I woke up with my mouth tasting disgusting, smears of make-up all over my pillow, my hair matted and sticky and a banging headache.

But all that was nothing compared to the guilt. All the elation of last night had faded – the rush of joy and excitement that had carried me through that first kiss, and the one after, and the one after that. I remembered the feeling of Patch’s hand in mine as he’d walked with me to the bus stop, slowly because of my shoes and because we kept stopping to kiss each other again – it had felt so right at the time, like our hands had been waiting for each other, all these years, and now they were linked together at last. I remembered thinking that no one had ever kissed as well as he did, and I’d never kissed anyone as well as I kissed him. I remembered us singing The Walk and how the lyrics – midnight, the rain, the kisses – felt like they’d been written just for us.

I remembered seeing my bus approaching, leaning into Patch for one final kiss, gazing into his eyes, made almost luminous by make-up, and saying, ‘I have to go home.’

He pressed me close against him and I pressed back, wishing I never had to leave the warmth of his body, the strength of his arms.

‘Don’t worry.’ His voice was gentle. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

‘Really?’ My face was pressed into his chest, my words muffled. ‘How will it be okay?’

‘It will. Trust me.’

And I had trusted him. I’d allowed myself to relive those kisses over and over, all the way home as the bus crept through the rainy streets. I’d imagined us having a future together, our friends saying they’d always known it was meant to be, Zara magnanimous as she embarked on a relationship with someone new, admitting that she’d never cared that deeply for Patch.

What a fool I was. What a duplicitous, horrible person. What a bad friend.

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