Wheeling away from me, he swung across the tarmac, vaulted onto his bike and, with the angry roar of an engine, drove off into the night.
64
Shakily, I leant against my car. Six years ago, Luke had sworn nothing was going on with Mia. He’d full on gaslit me and knowing now that I was right was no comfort.
This shouldn’t have made things worse. Mia or no Mia, he’d still left me. He’d still spent several years blanking me.
And even so, I’d survived; I’d made a new life and was happy with Quin. Whatever Luke and Mia had got up to back then shouldn’t matter now. But, stupidly, it did.
I checked the time. God Almighty, it was only twenty past nine – how was it still so early when so much had happened? Quin was on a plane and Nola was at the opera so I rang Claire. ‘On my way,’ she said. ‘Be with you in ten.’
Claire’s ‘ten’ was closer to twenty-five when she finally hurtled into the car park. Stopping with a skid of gravel, she ordered, ‘Get in. I’ll drop you back later.’
She had a lot of make-up on – was she wearing lashes? – and a black leather dress.
‘It’s vegan,’ she said. ‘My dress. Just in case you were thinking of schooling me.’
‘… I wasn’t. But … you’re looking very glossy for a Wednesday night, at home, doing nothing.’
‘Just how I roll, babes.’
She drove like she did everything – fast and focused. But when the turn-off for her house came up, she kept on going.
‘What’s going on?’ I cried. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Town. The club. Someplace quiet to talk.’
Her house was really that noisy? Hmmm …
Then my phone began ringing and both of us leapt with shock.
‘Oh my God!’ Claire said. ‘Who’s dead?’
‘No one. It’s Luke.’ I hit decline.
‘He rings? Who rings when it’s not a fatality! Total Luddite.’ Then, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Sending a text.’ I clicked out, Stop calling me.
Then a second one: Never call me again.
‘Now I’m blocking his number. See how he likes it.’ I took a bitter pleasure in doing what he’d done to me, then threw my phone back in my bag.
‘So. Tell me,’ Claire said when we were in a plush booth, in a low-lit lounge. Then, ‘Large Ardbeg,’ she rattled off to the hot, beardy waiter. ‘In a warmed glass. Just-out-of-the-dishwasher warm. And my sister here will have a –’
‘– glass of tap water,’ I said.
‘No, you won’t.’ Claire looked disgusted. ‘She’ll have a Silver Mountain.
‘It’s mineral water,’ she informed me when the young man had departed. ‘Horrendously expensive. So, go on, tell me.’
‘I was right about Mia.’
‘Oh, babes.’ She clenched my hand. ‘I’m so sorry. The fucking fucker!’
‘But he tried to make it my fault. Said that I was out of my head on sleeping tablets the whole time.’
‘So what if you were?’
‘Yeah, but I wasn’t.’
‘But who’d blame you?’
Wait, though. This was confusing. ‘Claire. Remember after he left me? And you came to New York? How was I?’
‘In absolute bits.’
‘But was I … coherent? I mean, did I seem … you know, like I’d been taking sleeping pills?’
‘Oh God, yeah.’
‘I don’t just mean at night –’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know, you were taking them round the clock. But your baby had died, your husband had left you. Wouldn’t anyone?’
Oh. Kay.
‘He was the worst,’ she mused. ‘He used to ring me – this was before he left you – complaining about you taking too many tablets. And not just me, he called Anna, Brigit, your friend Nola.’
‘I remember.’ Because soon after Luke rang the person, they then rang me and I’d have the job of putting them right. ‘You know Luke,’ I’d say. ‘Mr Straight Arrow, freaks out over me taking literal aspirin.’
‘Until then,’ Claire said, ‘I never knew he was so judgy.’
In the silence that followed, I heard myself ask, ‘After he’d left me, were you ever … worried about me?’
‘Of course! Your baby had died, your –’
‘I mean, worried that as well as the sleepers, I might … slip back into taking other drugs?’