find out how you got drugs that made you so stoned you ended up in a ditch.’ I stopped shouting when I saw Mrs Giles next door peer through her curtains. Her sister was Andrea’s mother-in-law. The whole bloody street would know by next week.
Patrick stood in the hallway. For the first time, I noticed how drawn he looked. Those evenings when Ginny had whipped out her tarot cards and made us listen to our ‘fate’ or Patrick had made curry for the four of us in our flat in Hackney, regaling us with stories of how he’d had to haul his boss out of the fountain in reception seemed not decades, but centuries ago. I had a flash of insecurity that eighteen years of marriage hadn’t extinguished completely. I’d never quite shaken off the feeling that Patrick had got sucked into comforting me when my dad died and then it was almost easier to marry me than hurt me by extricating himself. This couldn’t be the life he’d imagined. Because it certainly wasn’t mine.
Chapter Twelve
I woke up the next morning feeling as though I was on the wrong end of two bottles of heavy red wine, even though I hadn’t had a drink the night before. As soon as I opened my eyes, waves of anxiety rolled over me. I lay there, letting my mind wander around the sensation that a whole group of mothers would be on some WhatsApp chat picking over the latest disaster, with Helaina and Georgia somehow coming out of it smelling of roses. I kept sieving through my memory for the warning signs, for the bits I was missing. I itched to ransack Victor and Phoebe’s rooms to see if they had a stash of drugs tucked in a drawer somewhere. Phoebe would be cleverer than that, probably. I had no idea how cunning Victor was.
I went through to the bathroom, resisting the urge to clatter about the bedroom and disturb Patrick for the sole purpose of not being the only one awake worrying. I didn’t know how he managed to sleep. I found myself inspecting every inch of the cottage, trying to work out where they could hide drugs. I even lifted up the lid of the toilet cistern to see if there was a little stash of contraband in a waterproof bag.
I tutted at my own ridiculousness. I’d obviously transported myself to the set of a gangster movie rather than a bathroom with a shelf of shells collected on West Wittering beach in rural Sussex. I sat down on the loo seat. Maybe my grief over Ginny was making me paranoid. She would have made fun of me. She’d always subscribed to the philosophy that if people wanted to talk about her behind her back, she’d give them something worth talking about. ‘Honestly, I couldn’t give a shit. Let them have twenty minutes bitching about me and my shortcomings. I see it as a public entertainment service, brightening up their sad little lives.’ And over the two decades we were friends, I didn’t quite get to the dizzying heights of her nonchalance, but I thought I’d conquered my need to have everyone approve of me. Instead I felt like I did before Ginny blew into my life – anxious to fit in but hating myself for wanting to.
I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and was just sitting down when a message pinged up on Victor’s iPad right in my eyeline. I didn’t even know iPads could receive texts. I was more curious about that initially than the actual message and didn’t really mean to read it, but the sender – Georgia – caught my eye and before I knew it, I was staring at Does Jo know we’re going with each other? I’ve told Phoebe not to say anything. I will tell my parents, obvs, but after last night, not gd idea yet followed by a whole row of hearts and a couple of teeth clenched emojis.
Immediately afterwards my phone pinged with a text from Faye. It was as though she had a camera in my kitchen and somehow knew Georgia was trying to keep a lid on her relationship – if teens their age even had relationships any more – with Victor.
What an evening that was! Can you meet for a coffee this morning? Think we need to talk and make a plan for our girls going forwards. :)
It was incredible how much that smiley emoji cheered me