Page 92 of The Fall-Out

Unusually – although perhaps inevitably – I was early. I’d decided not to bother dressing up or putting on make-up – she knew what I looked like, after all, and stunning her with my highlighted, contoured beauty wouldn’t change the fact that she’d always been more beautiful than I could dream of being.

Sitting in the sunshine on the steps of the National Gallery, my jacket draped over my shoulders, looking up at Nelson’s Column soaring into the sky, down at the eagerly pecking pigeons and around at the crowds of tourists, I felt oddly at peace. Whatever happened today would probably not change anything, but might at least clear my conscience.

Zara arrived exactly on time. Like me, she wasn’t wearing make-up – the first time I’d ever seen her without it. Her skin was alabaster flawless, but her eyes looked smaller, her jawline rounder. In her gym leggings and jumper, she looked very young and somehow defenceless.

She sat down next to me and wrapped her arms around her knees.

‘Hey, Naomi.’

‘Hey. Thanks for coming.’

‘It’s okay. I had nothing on. I’m going back to Paris this afternoon – I only came back to check out of my Airbnb.’

‘Then I’m glad I caught you. This won’t take long. I – basically, I just wanted to say sorry.’

I angled my body sideways so I could see her face. We were close enough that, over the scent of roasting nuts from a street vendor’s cart and a cloud of sweet, fruity vapour from a passerby’s e-cigarette, I could smell her familiar perfume.

‘You’re sorry?’ Her eyes widened in surprise.

‘I… Yeah.’ I looked down, my fingers twiddling the strap of my handbag, then forced myself to meet her gaze again. ‘I did a shit thing, back then with Patch. You trusted me and I betrayed your trust. I was in love and I thought that made it okay, but it didn’t.’

Zara laughed. The sun emerged from behind a cloud, illuminating her face and the brilliant green of her eyes. She squinted against it, the sides of her nose wrinkling, and pushed her sunglasses down from her head.

‘I didn’t think you’d go through with it, you know,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘With Patch. Come on. I wasn’t stupid – I could see how you wanted it to go. And he fancied you too. What a man, honestly. Lovely to look at but as subtle as a brick.’

‘Is that why you told me you’d been unfaithful to him?’ I asked. It felt strange articulating the secret I’d kept to myself all these years.

‘I had to, didn’t I? You’d never have got on with it and shagged him if I hadn’t. There was a risk you’d tell him, of course, but I didn’t think you would.’

My sleep-deprived brain reeled. I felt like I was in one of those funfair halls of mirrors, all the reflections of myself and the people I thought I knew suddenly distorted and unfamiliar.

‘Hang on.’ I looked up at her again, but saw only my own face, reflected in the black lenses of her shades. ‘You meant for me and Patch to get together? I don’t understand.’

‘It’s simple.’ She turned to me, her blank gaze direct. ‘You wanted something that was mine. I didn’t want it much myself, but that wasn’t the point. And I wanted something you had. So I figured we’d do a trade.’

‘Zara, I don’t get it. What are you talking about?’

‘You had them – Kate, Rowan and Abbie. You were right there in the inner circle and I wasn’t.’

‘But you weren’t even here. You were in Paris.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I could have been camping out in their front room and it would have made no difference. You were their friend and I was just someone who was around because she was dating their mate.’

‘But we all were. The Girlfriends’ Club – the clue’s in the name. That’s how it started. And anyway, you said?—’

But she interrupted me before I could continue. ‘Sure. For about five seconds – which was approximately how long it took for Kate to dump Ryan and stop being a girlfriend, if you remember. You and Whatshisname didn’t last much longer. Then Rowan and Paul split up. And Andy was never anyone’s girlfriend.’

I stared at her, my face no doubt as blank as her black-covered eyes. ‘I don’t understand. I thought this was about Patch, but you’re talking about our friends.’

She sighed, like she was explaining something very simple to someone very hard of thinking. ‘It was about him, like I said. I thought if he cheated on me with you, they’d want you out of the group and me in, because they’d feel sorry for me.’

‘But that’s mad.’

‘Possibly. It made sense to me at the time.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, it didn’t work, did it?’

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