Jill’s face, when she opens the door, is a picture. I tailgated someone to get in the building; she had no idea. She has a wine glass in her hand. She’s put on a lot of weight since I saw her last, but instead of softening her features it’s somehow made her seem even less accessible, as if she’s buried herself.
‘Oh. Hey,’ she whispers, as if there’s a sleeping baby inside.
‘Hi. Is Emma here?’
She hesitates, but I can see it in her face. I walk right past her and into the sitting room, where I find Emma on the sofa, drinking wine and eating toast.
We stare at each other for a few seconds. Then: ‘Leo?’ She looks surprised, as if it’s strange for me to have turned up here after spending thirteen hours looking for her.
I look at the open wine bottle. They’re halfway down it. A second, empty bottle, sits on a console table.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘What are you doing?’
Emma’s eyes flit over to Jill. ‘Er – what?’
Then, suddenly, she claps a hand to her chest. ‘Oh my God. I was going to call after Ruby’s dinner. I did, but Jill’s phone was out of battery so she put it on charge and then . . . I am so sorry, I—’
‘You were going to call after Ruby’s dinner? She eats dinner at six p.m.!’
Emma’s looking at me like I’m talking a foreign language. Is she drunk?
‘Leo . . . ?’
‘What about calling me at nine thirty this morning? When we were meant to meet? Or maybe ten a.m., when you were already half an hour late? How about calling me at any time today?’ My voice is too loud for this comfortable room, with its neatly ordered cushions and spotless surfaces. ‘Do you give any sort of a shit about me, Emma? Does our marriage mean anything to you?’
Emma’s hair is shiny in the glow of Jill’s carefully placed lamps. I want to empty her wine all over it. She has shown no respect for me and Ruby, no consideration. She’s allowed me to uncover her double life and then just deserted us to carry on running secret missions, as if we’re no more than props.
‘Leo,’ she says, and I can see she’s speaking carefully, so as not to sound drunk. ‘I’m sorry. I was going to call after Ruby’s dinner. But I . . . To be honest, I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. You said you needed a couple of days before you were ready to talk to me. I’m just respecting your wishes, darling, I . . .’
‘I said I needed what?’
Her face changes, just fractionally, and I see her rewinding something in her head.
Slowly, she turns to look at Jill.
‘Jill?’ she says.
Jill’s standing in the doorway to her kitchen, wine glass still in hand. Her knuckles, wrapped around its stem, are white. She’s not enjoying my first visit to her flat.
‘I had to help Emma with something today,’ she says. ‘I can’t really talk about it, I’m afraid. But it was vitally important.’
I swap my car keys from one hand to another. ‘Concerning the adult child she has? The one I knew nothing about? Concerning her relationship with Jeremy and Janice Rothschild? Her dismissal from the BBC when they learned she’d been convicted of harassment? I think you probably can afford to tell me.’
Silence.
There’s music playing in the kitchen, something folksy and not really suited either to Emma or Jill. A mournful voice sings about a train disappearing down the line, down the line, down the line, guitar picking miserably along in the background.
Emma’s hands have flown to her mouth. She stands up. ‘No,’ she whispers. ‘Leo, no . . . Oh please no . . .’