Page 69 of Pictures of Him

‘Harry’s wife just died. Do you even care?’

‘I know you haven’t had any sleep, but don’t take it out on me.’

You fucked my girlfriend – your kind of word, your kind of action.I’m not sure whether to cry or slap him. I’m not sure how to cure my heart, broken by Ling’s death, scalded by the betrayal of my supposed best friend. Now is not the time. I repeat it in my brain like a mantra. Clearly now is not the time.

‘Be nice, Jack,’ Celia calls from the other end of the kitchen.

‘Shut up,’ Jack says, without bothering to look up at her.

Like I say, I’m re-evaluating everything. Not just the fact that he slept with Catherine – and oh God, the pain that image brings. But the way he treats his wife. These sudden glimpses of brutality. And I am wondering, right now, why it is that my friendship with him has been so enduring. Was he laughing at me all along, while he shared my house and drank my wine and ate at all the most expensive restaurants on my credit card and then stole the one person, the only person who has ever really mattered to me?

‘Would you like some eggs, Lucian? Or something else?’ Celia asks.

Anything I eat will taste like cardboard. Cardboard eggs. May as well.

‘What I’d really like is a beer,’ I say, and Jack gets to his feet for the first time.

I cannot look at him. I can barely stop myself reaching out and grabbing him by the throat. Is it true? Did you fuck her? Did you really do that to me?

While Jack gets my beer, I crouch down to talk to Freddie, who is strapped into one of those low-slung bouncy chairs.

‘Keys?’ I say, pulling my keys out of my jeans pocket, and he snatches them from my hand and holds them up close to his face, deadly serious, frowning, as if he’s examining a diamond for flaws. I can see from Celia’s expression, rounded eyes, mouth pursed, that car keys were not the right thing to give him.

‘Here.’ Jack hands me a Beck’s. ‘Great party, by the way,’ he says, chipping the top off another bottle for himself. ‘Apart from the ending.’

I try to take a swig of beer but there’s just this great bubble of sorrow in my throat and I can’t get it down.

‘I know what you’re doing and I’m beyond tired, so just fuck off, will you?’

‘Oh come on. Of course it’s tragic that Ling died, of course we’re sad about it, but we didn’t really know her, did we?’

‘Harry loved her.’

‘Ling was very sweet, I agree, but we all know it was a marriage of convenience. She needed money, Harry needed a wife.’

Celia screams and drops a saucepan on the floor, andthe baby creases up his face for a few seconds, like a time delay, and then starts yelling.

‘I hate you!’ It seems to burst out of her.

‘Oh fuck’s sake, Celia, calm down.’

‘I hate the things you say. I hate who you are. You pretend that you’re this great guy, this great husband and father, this great friend, but really all you think about is yourself. Harry’s wife just died and you don’t even care. It means nothing to you. You’re disgusting. You disgust me.’

‘Sweetheart, that’s just not true. Of course I care. Why are you getting so upset?’

Jack moves towards her, but Celia screams.

‘Get away from me!’

She unsnaps the baby from his chair and grabs him into her arms.

‘Sorry about your eggs,’ she says, rocking him back and forth.

I shake my head. I can’t drink the beer or eat the eggs or find a single thing to say. Except the words I have stuck in my head.I hate you too, Jack. I hate you too.

Fifteen years earlier

By the time I returned to Bristol, the cold wind of disenchantment had blown, and I was universally abhorred for bringing you – it was said – to the edge of a breakdown.

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