Page 76 of The Fall-Out

She made a vague, helpless gesture with her hands. ‘I’m frightened they’ll find something wrong, of course.’

‘Oh, Bridget.’ I got up and squatted down next to her, taking her hands in mine. ‘Of course you are. But if there’s anything wrong – and there might not even be – putting it off isn’t going to help, is it?’

She looked down at me, and for a second I saw the fear in her eyes. ‘I’m only seventy-five, you know.’

‘Exactly! You’ll be around to see Toby and Meredith graduate from university for sure. So why not stop worrying and just do it?’

‘All right,’ she promised. ‘I will.’

Shortly afterwards, I hurried home and set about cleaning the house from top to bottom. I walked to the high street and bought lamp chops at the fancy organic butcher rather than raiding the supermarket as usual. I begged the woman in the beauty salon for a last-minute appointment and had the hair ripped off my legs and bikini line with hot wax.

I kept myself so busy that I barely had time to think of the Girlfriends’ Club WhatsApp, or wonder what might be being said on there without me – about me.

Overnight, the feeling of outraged injustice had died down and been replaced with hollow sadness. For well over a decade, my friends had been my sounding board, my home base, my lifeline. And now I’d chosen to walk away.

Or perhaps I’d chosen to jump before I was pushed. When I’d needed them most, they hadn’t been there. They’d heard the other side of the story – Zara’s side, no doubt told to them when I wasn’t there, and then confirmed by me – and their little jury of three was still out on who to support.

Well, I’d made my choice. Without my friends, I’d have to make my own way, and that meant I needed my husband more than ever. I was going to stick by him – stand by my man, as a tabloid newspaper would have put it, if Patch was a philandering footballer and I was his long-suffering, hair-extensioned wife – and my family, even if it meant sacrificing my relationship with my friends.

Already, with my initial anger having cooled, I could feel the void. Looking at the package of lamb chops, blood seeping through their paper wrapping, I remembered the incredible potato dish Kate had once made, loaded with cream and garlic, and thought how, just a few days before, I’d have messaged to ask her for the recipe. I thought how I could have shared the news of the twins’ sleeping through the night with Rowan, and how she’d join me in punching the air triumphantly but be there to console me if – as would almost certainly happen – it all went tits up again in a night or two. I imagined commiserating with Abbie over the excruciating pain of my Brazilian wax, and how she’d be able to recommend exactly the right combination of ice packs, aloe vera and paracetamol to soothe it.

But there was no point dwelling on that now. While the children splashed in the bath, I had a lightning shower. Then I dried them off, got them into bed and read them a story, trying to conceal my urgency. (Hurry up and go to sleep. Don’t mess me around tonight. And once you’re asleep, it would be fricking amazing if you could maybe stay that way for, like, eight hours? Maybe?)

And then, dressed in my nicest underwear and a jersey wrap dress that Patch had always liked and which by some miracle still fitted me, I went downstairs, set the kitchen table, lit candles and opened a bottle of wine.

On the morning of Andy's funeral, I’d asked myself when I’d last had sex with my husband and remembered that it had been Christmas Eve. And now, Christmas Eve was still the last time.

And the time before that? On Patch’s birthday, obviously. In June.

It was normal, I’d told myself, after pregnancy, a painful, infected C-section wound, endless breastfeeding and broken nights. We’d get back on track, I’d thought.

But now the children were just months away from starting school and our track was nowhere in sight.

With relief, I heard Patch’s key in the lock. I filled my wine glass, poured one for him, and met him in the kitchen doorway with a kiss.

‘You look lovely.’ He sounded surprised, which made his words less flattering than they should have been.

‘Wait till you see what’s for dinner,’ I joked back. ‘It’ll be ten minutes. Want to grab a shower?’

Patch took in the candles, the smell of meat sizzling under the grill, the open bottle of wine.

‘Sure.’ He grinned and kissed me again. ‘Be right back.’

After we’d eaten, I opened another bottle of merlot – excessive, probably, but in that moment I felt I needed all the Dutch courage there was going.

‘Shall we sit on the sofa?’ I suggested.

Patch slotted the last plate into the dishwasher. ‘Sure. Unless you want to go upstairs?’

‘Don’t want to risk waking the kids.’

‘Gotcha. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’

I laughed. Knowing he felt the same way I did about this – that it was some kind of make-or-break moment, a challenge to be risen to – gave me hope. We were a team – we were in this together.

He took my hand and led me out of the kitchen, flicking the light switch off as we went. The lamp next to the sofa glowed softly. The television was off. A Spotify playlist of nineties chill-out classics was playing.

‘So,’ he said, ‘do you remember how we do this? Because it’s been a while.’

---