doesn’t live down the road from me anymore. So, when it gets too much, I go and see her. And I’ve got her in my arms in just over one day. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at,’ I say, hoping I don’t sound rude.
‘Flying makes the world a much smaller place. Why did it take you six months to come and see him?’
‘I wanted to come sooner, but he was working on a large contract and wouldn’t have had time to see me. Then, he was supposed to come to Dubai on business again, but that was cancelled. Then, he had a family wedding and lots of duties, and it was a couple of months ago that he had this horrid bout of tonsillitis so he didn’t want to pass it …’ I trail off.
‘You’re saying your entire relationship developed over a computer?’ Mary asks.
‘Uh-huh.’
And other than those selfies in Nick’s car, I never even saw beyond his ‘office’. Although I don’t tell Mary that. I might as well borrow one of Mary’s lipsticks and write STUPID across my forehead. It probably won’t make me look any smarter if I tell Mary how I’d believed that my love for Nick was old-fashioned, as if he were away at war and we were writing letters to one another, except our exchanges were on messenger chats instead of paper.
Messenger chats. Oh my God, he must have set up a bunch of social media accounts under his fake name. Then again, it only takes seconds to create one, doesn’t it?
‘So,’ Mary says, waving her arm. ‘Where does this fella fit into all this?’
‘What fella?’ I ask.
Mary stands. The cat jumps down and darts from the room. ‘Him.’
I twist around to look over my shoulder and see who Mary is pointing at. A shrill yelp escapes my throat. Sitting in a large wooden rocking chair, half shadowed like the Phantom of the Opera and reading a tattered old book, is Jim. He glances up, looking between me and Mary, not at all impressed with having to suddenly become a part of our conversation.
‘How long have you been hiding there?’ I cry.
He sighs, he stretches, he yawns. He closes the book, keeping his index finger sandwiched between the pages, and leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. A slight shake of his head answers my question; he’s been there the whole time.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I snap.
Jim looks at Mary, perhaps for help.
‘He didn’t have anything to say,’ Mary says. ‘How’s the book?’
‘Yeah, it’s not bad, Mary,’ Jim says, that smile appearing from one side of his mouth. ‘I don’t mind this sort of crime thriller stuff now and then. It’s like crack on paper.’
‘But it won’t kill you,’ Mary laughs.
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Jim laughs, too.
‘Take it with you.’
‘You sure?’
‘I won’t be reading it twice. Do you wanna top up?’ Mary lifts the teapot from the oval table beside her armchair. ‘Another biscuit?’
‘Oh, go on then. You’ve twisted me arm.’
I sit frozen on the edge of the sofa, my hands hanging onto my chest. What’s going on here? Jim and Mary are acting like the best of friends, completely at ease within each other’s company. Now they’re talking about the book again, and other similar ones they’ve read, and I’m just getting lost listening to them, for they’ve somehow switched their chit-chat onto the area of Liverpool where Jim is from. Apparently Mary used to live down that way, going back about forty years. Jim says she must have done alright for herself, to get a house up this way. Mary says it was the only perk of being married to an accountant.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ I whisper.
Jim and Mary stop chatting.
‘What did she say?’ Mary asks.
‘She said she thought I’d gone,’ Jim says.
‘Gone where?’ Mary asks.
‘Dunno. I think she thought I’d just got off, like.’
‘Why would she think that?’
Nobody answers Mary’s question. I smile at Jim, my way of saying thanks. He didn’t just ‘get off’, or however he wanted to put it. Jim actually smiles back, that one-sided smile of his.
‘And now you’re awake, queen,’ Mary says. ‘Can you tell me why the bloody hell you’re carrying a bloody mop around with you? I asked your friend here as he was carrying you through me front door, but he said he didn’t know.’
‘Well, I told her I wouldn’t ask,’ Jim says. True to his word, he hasn’t.