Page 91 of The Fall-Out

‘You poor thing,’ she soothed. ‘Honestly, what a drama. You couldn’t make it up. Come on, let’s fix your face. There are still a few people dancing and there’ll be bacon rolls in a bit. We’ll get you a glass of fizz.’

‘I don’t think I can. Where is she?’

‘Zara? She went outside. She’s sitting in the garden smoking.’ She hesitated, then admitted, ‘Patch is with her. He was the only person who could calm her down. We couldn’t leave her alone – she was hysterical.’

‘I don’t want to see her.’

‘You won’t have to. Don’t worry. There’s no way she’s going to swan back in there and start troughing bacon like nothing happened.’

‘Still. I can’t.’

‘Okay. It doesn’t matter. Do you want to come up to my room with me? I’ve got the most amazing make-up remover – it’s SkinCeuticals and it’s like magic.’

I noticed my reflection in the mirror about the basins and saw why she’d mentioned it.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks. I don’t want anyone to see me.’

‘Mate.’ Rowan pressed her hands on my shoulders and looked down at me, her face stern. ‘When you rugby-tackle your way to a bunch of flowers then rip them apart like you’re one of those muscle-men who tear up telephone directories, then start effing and blinding at all and sundry, then you’ll have something to be ashamed of. I’ll be sure and remind you if I catch you doing it by mistake.’

I felt a watery smile reach my face, and giggled.

‘And until then, you can hold your head up high,’ she went on. ‘Understand?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Next time I feel the urge to do that, I’ll clear it with you first.’

‘That’s my girl. Come on now, bedtime.’

I let her lead me out, guide me discreetly round the edge of the room, out to the lobby and into the lift. She took me to her room, cleaned my face and lent me a pair of her pyjamas. Then we made tea and sat on her bed, sipping and chatting about things that had nothing to do with Abbie’s wedding, or Patch, or Zara.

And I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up there the next morning, Rowan asleep in the twin bed next to mine, my mind feeling oddly clear, like it had been scrubbed with Rowan’s magic make-up remover.

I’d tried my best – everyone had seen it. Everyone would understand that I’d done nothing wrong. Everyone had seen the real Zara.

THIRTY-THREE

It was dark by the time I left Kate’s flat. The warm sun – a promise of spring that had filled me with hope that I could take back control of everything that had unravelled since Zara had walked back into our lives – had long set, and the chill of evening seemed to sap my confidence.

Despite the cold and the wind that whipped along the river, tangling my hair and cutting through my thin denim jacket, I walked across Tower Bridge over the river instead of heading to the nearest Tube station. I barely registered where I was going; my feet moved on autopilot, my thoughts scattered. I felt as if I was close to a resolution, the solutions to the problems that had almost shattered my marriage and placed my closest friendships in jeopardy almost within my grasp.

Rowan and I could tell the others about Zara’s final lie, reveal her for the person she was, definitively not to be trusted. The fog of mistrust could be cleared. I could tell Patch what she’d done and maybe one day we’d laugh about it. I could rebuild my marriage, put my selfish personal ambitions on the back burner for now, embrace the life that until Andy’s death and Zara’s reappearance had felt safe if not satisfying.

I could make it all work.

The prospect sustained me all the way home, through kissing my children’s sleeping faces, holding my breath so as not to wake them, through telling Patch that I wasn’t hungry and microwaving a ready meal for him as if he wasn’t capable of doing it himself, through cleaning my teeth and putting on my pyjamas and getting into bed.

But as soon as I switched off the light, it was as if a light inside my head came on.

I couldn’t turn back the clock. I needed to face up to the insecurities that had made me doubt my friends and made all of us believe Zara’s lies. I needed to face up to my own role in the break-up of her and Patch’s relationship. I needed to start afresh.

I needed to see Zara.

I spent the night sleeping fitfully, itching to contact her, to arrange to meet up, to say my piece. But five thirty in the morning – when I officially gave up on sleep – was too early to contact anyone, even Zara. Perhaps especially Zara, who had always been a night owl.

I lay in the darkness, my eyes open and my mind whirring, until Patch’s alarm went off and I heard Toby call me from his bed.

Then, of course, the carnage of the morning began, and it was almost ten before I was able to sit down with my phone, drinking coffee on the sofa in the slanting morning sun, and compose my message.

Zara replied almost immediately, and we arranged to meet in town, not for lunch or drinks, but in Trafalgar Square, like we were spies organising a dead drop or something.

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