‘Not really,’ said Gibbs. ‘How could we know what was going to happen before it happened?’
‘But I mean, we didn’t even think we wanted it to happen.’
‘So? It was still going to happen.’
‘What do you mean?’ Olivia pushed him off her. ‘Do you think that’s true? That it was going to happen, even then, before we had a clue?’
Gibbs thought about it. ‘It happened,’ he said. ‘Before it happened, it was going to happen.’
‘You think us ending up here together was inevitable?’
‘It is now,’ said Gibbs.
‘Yes, but I mean . . .’ Olivia wondered how best to put the question. ‘Before Charlie and Simon’s wedding, might we either have got together or not got together, or did the possibility that we wouldn’t get together never exist at all?’
‘Second one,’ said Gibbs.
‘Really?’ Liv tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘There was never any possibility that we wouldn’t have an affair – that’s what you really think? So you believe in destiny? You think free will’s an illusion?’
‘You’re doing it again.’
‘What?’
‘Whatever I say, you change it into something I don’t understand, then tell me that’s what I said. There’s no point me saying anything. You write my lines, I don’t care.’
‘I’m the one who doesn’t understand,’ Liv groaned. ‘Explain!’
Gibbs stared up at the ceiling. ‘When something happens, you can look back and say it was always going to happen – because it did. There’s no other choice, once it’s happened.’
‘I can’t work out if you’re saying something romantic or not.’
He shrugged. ‘Not deliberately. Just stating a fact.’
‘Okay, then – what do you think about the future?’
‘Full of sex.’
‘With me?’ Olivia asked.
‘No, with Ant and fucking Dec. Obviously with you.’
‘I don’t think Debbie’d see it as obvious.’
‘Don’t talk about Debbie.’
‘Dom wouldn’t either.’
‘Or him.’
‘What’s in their future? Dom’s and Debbie’s?’
‘Not us,’ said Gibbs.
‘I used to come here all the time as a student,’ Kit Bowskill told Simon. ‘Loved the place. Ever since, I’ve had a thing about tucked-away pubs down side streets. Never on main roads. A pub on a main road’s all wrong.’ He smiled, took a swig of his Guinness. ‘Sorry. I’m rambling.’
‘I’d have come to Silsford,’ Simon told him, sensing his nervousness. ‘Or London. Did you have a reason for wanting to meet here?’
‘Like I said: I love the Maypole.’
Simon kept his eyes on him. Eventually Bowskill flushed and looked away, loosening the knot of his tie. ‘I’m a hopeless liar, as you can see. I was coming to Cambridge tonight anyway. To meet Connie.’
‘She’s here?’
‘I don’t know if she’s here now, but she told me to meet her at nine thirty.’
‘Where?’
Bowskill looked apologetic. ‘I told her I was meeting you, that you’ve been trying to get in touch with her. She doesn’t want to speak to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s angry with you for going away without telling her. She went to you for help and you didn’t help her.’
Evidently Simon failed to conceal his annoyance, because Bowskill said, ‘I wouldn’t take it personally. Con’s angry with everyone at the moment – feels the whole world’s let her down.’
At the table next to them, three middle-aged men with loud voices were talking about a scholarship – someone had been awarded one who didn’t deserve it; someone who had deserved it hadn’t got it. One of the men was angry about this; Simon tried to block out his words, concentrate on Bowskill’s.
‘The house you and Connie nearly bought in 2003,’ he said.
‘18 Pardoner Lane?’
‘That was the address?’
Bowskill nodded.
‘Connie doesn’t think so.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She told Sam and Ian Grint that it was number 17. 17 Pardoner Lane.’
‘She’s misremembered, in that case,’ said Bowskill. ‘It was number 18.’
‘Why would she get it wrong?’
‘Why does anyone get anything wrong? If I sat here and listed everything Connie’s been wrong about in the last six months, we’d still be here next Tuesday.’
Simon nodded. ‘You must be pretty angry with her.’
‘I’m not allowed to be, am I? I wish I could believe she’d deliberately set out to ruin both our lives – then at least I’d be able to hate her. As it is, I’m living in an anonymous box in London, surrounded by lots of other suits in their anonymous boxes, banished from the home I’ve spent years creating – from scratch, almost. Melrose Cottage was a wreck when we bought it. It wasn’t Connie who sanded the floors, tiled the fireplaces, landscaped the garden – it was me. And now she’s booted me out. Yeah,