But we were away for the weekend, and so he did the daftest thing. He went round to the other woman’s house, and that was it as far as Georgia was concerned.’
Leo raised her eyebrows. Ellie frowned at her.
‘You don’t look very surprised. I would never have thought in a million years that they would split. They were devoted to each other. I thought you’d be astonished.’
‘Come on, Ellie,’ Leo said. ‘This is me you’re talking to. When did I ever have expectations of any man? So Pat has gone the way of them all. Shock, gulp, horror.’
Leo held out the hand clasping her wine glass towards Ellie as if she were pointing with it.
‘Georgia’s better off on her own.’
Ellie shook her head.
‘She’s not, you know. She’s as miserable as sin. Pat is too, but he won’t admit it. Max says he’s been like death warmed up at school for the last few weeks. At least now it’s the summer holidays he might use the break to get a grip, although apparently he disappeared from the rugby club last night part way through the evening. Well, at least that’s what Max says, although how the hell he would know given the state he was in when he got home, I don’t know.’
Leo couldn’t help thinking that Pat wasn’t the only one who had disappeared last night – something that she still hadn’t got to the bottom of.
* * *
Mimi’s sitting room had to be one of the most depressing rooms Patrick Keever had ever seen. He didn’t mind that it was small. Small could be cosy. But it was devoid of… well, anything really. The only thing that lent any colour to the room was the hideous swirly patterned carpet, and only then if orange was your thing. Other than that, it was a beige on beige effect. He longed for the pale sage green of his own sitting room carpet, with the soft, chocolate leather sofas, the open fireplace and the black and white photos that he had taken himself, and spent so long framing and hanging.
Of course, he had nobody else to blame for how things were at the moment, but try as he might he couldn’t seem to work out what to do. Georgia said she still loved him, but whenever he offered to leave Mimi and move back - which he would do in a flash - she narrowed her eyes and shook her head, looking at him as if he were mad. He appeared to be missing something, but Georgia wasn’t offering any clues.
And now he was going to Max and Ellie’s for dinner with the woman who had - to all intents and purposes - replaced Georgia in his life. It was hard for his friends, and he understood that. He and Max had been close since university - chalk and cheese, Georgia had always called them. Max the sporty, fun loving guy who made everybody laugh, and Pat the serious, studious type who loved the theatre and the arts. But somehow they had clicked.
He looked at his watch. ‘Mimi, are you nearly ready? We should be going,’ he shouted up the stairs. You didn’t have to shout too loudly in this room though, or the neighbours would be knocking on the thin walls that divided the houses.
Mimi didn’t answer, and he wasn’t going to call again. He didn’t want to go at all, if truth be told. But if they were going, and they ought to, he would rather arrive on time or a little early. He didn’t want to walk into a room crowded with people. He always got the sense nowadays that people were talking about him. He’d had enough of that the night before at the end of term party. He had been so glad to escape - although in view of what had happened later perhaps he would have been better staying where he was. He hoped nobody had noticed his disappearing act because if they had, he would have a lot of explaining to do.
Pat was dreading the next few weeks. School holidays. As a teacher, he would normally look forward to this time, loving the sense that he had space in which to think about the following term, and to give some thought to his lesson planning. In previous years he’d had the house to himself for most of the holiday weeks while Georgia was at work, and he could read, make notes, listen to music and