Lexi thought of the way Ed was when they were alone: tender, considerate, loving. He looked at her with adoration, told her she was beautiful, brilliant, kind. Could he be the same person who’d once hissed, Dirty bitch and Filthy whore?
‘Lexi,’ he said, coming towards her. ‘You know me. You know this is all nonsense, don’t you? If Ana is such a great friend, as she claims to be – and if this, this story of hers is true, that I am a monster – then why didn’t she warn you about me? Why did she come out to Greece to celebrate your hen weekend and say nothing?’
It was a good question. An important one.
Lexi looked to Ana. ‘Yes, why?’
79
Ana
Ana had let Lexi down, she knew that.
‘I didn’t know how to deal with what happened to me. It was easier to kid myself that it was only a one-night stand. It was better if I believed that for the baby’s sake.’
Every time Ana felt a rising of emotion that suggested otherwise – the tightening in her chest if she was alone with a man, the flickering of fear if a door was locked behind her, the smell of vodka on someone’s breath – she told herself to toughen up.
‘When I saw Ed again all those years later, as a grown woman, I felt it in my body. I knew. I understood that what happened between us wasn’t right. I hadn’t misremembered anything. I had shut it out.’ She kept her gaze on Lexi. ‘The strength of that remembering, that feeling, was terrifying. I was standing outside his office, shaking. And then … then you came towards him. You looked so lovely, so happy, so pleased to see him. You beamed at Ed. Kissed him.’ Ana shook her head. ‘I was so confused. I thought: Ed can’t be this person, not the one I’m remembering, if he’s with someone like you.’
Lexi listened intently.
‘You were carrying a yoga tote with the name of a studio on. It was close to where I lived, so the next day, I went there. It wasn’t some big plan. I … I just wanted to see who you were. To understand why you were with Ed. Work out who he was, what had happened to me. I didn’t expect us to become friends.’ Ana had never had a group of close girlfriends. She had colleagues, she had her sister, she knew mothers from school, but she’d never had someone like Lexi in her life – and her friendship felt like a gift.
‘I should have walked away. I know that. But I liked spending time together. You know what I hoped? That you’d break up with Ed, and that when it ended, you and I could keep on being friends.’
‘I’m sure you would’ve loved that,’ Ed said thinly.
‘I shouldn’t have said yes to the hen weekend. I know that. But you were so excited about it, so insistent that I be here – and I wanted to be. Part of me still hoped that I was wrong about Ed. How could he be the same person who did what he did to me – yet be someone entirely different with you? But then, out here, I started hearing things. There were red flags in the way Eleanor spoke about Ed, plus I overheard a conversation between Bella and Robyn about a lap dancer who knew Ed – and I knew this wasn’t all in my mind. Ed is just extremely clever at hiding that side of himself.’
‘Your claims are growing absurd,’ Ed declared, with a careful note of pity in his voice. He turned towards his sister. ‘You know me better than anyone. You know I would never have done this awful thing Ana is claiming.’
Eleanor’s gaze travelled across her brother’s face.
Ana could see the similarities now in the structure of their noses, the squareness of their jawlines, the broadness of their shoulders.
Everyone stared expectantly.
Ed bobbed his head at Eleanor, gesturing for her to speak.
The quiet grew, gathering close, all of them waiting for Eleanor’s answer.
80
Eleanor
The night thrummed with heat and the low drone of insects. Eleanor could feel the pinch of salt streaking her bare legs, the fading warmth of the stone terrace beneath her soles.
She stared at her brother. Strange, Ed, right here, in this setting. He didn’t seem to fit, like he was in the wrong place with his shiny leather shoes and pressed shirt, when they were all barefoot, shoulders tanned. It was the first time Eleanor had felt, I belong; it’s you who doesn’t.
‘Tell them, Eleanor. You know me.’
You know me.
Oh yes, she knew Ed.
She knew that on her first day at senior school, she’d waved to Ed in the corridor and he’d blanked her. ‘Who was that?’ a red-haired boy had asked, and Ed had shrugged and said, ‘Just some retard.’