I crumble, face in hands.
‘Was that the point then?’ I ask, as I look up. ‘That I would know how you felt, if my own marriage was in ruins?’
She raises both eyebrows.
I carry on, through my sobs. ‘You made me feel like I couldn’t look after my child and like I was having a breakdown and I know what that feels like too because despite what you think, my life has been hard and that has happened to me before.
‘I’ve been at rock bottom, at the very darkest places. So I know, for definite, when I’m on my way there again. And I was. I am.’
I could keep going but tears are taking up breath and I run out of it and all I can do is sob and sob, as Emma stands up and moves closer, standing over me.
For half a second I wonder if she will hug me but then I remember: that was the old world.
My brain switches to fear.
If not hugs, why is she coming so close?
But she is moving away again now, staring at the wall with an Alain de Botton quote on it. Everyone got the message from that piece of evidence? I am clever, I am arty, I am well read, I can design a beautiful home.
‘You just need to say the words to me and admit it, Scarlett,’ she says, head to one side looking at the print. Slurs. She hasn’t heard a word. ‘Stop me going crazy. Say the words.’
I stare at her.
‘Admit that you and Robert have been sleeping together all the time that we have been friends. I have to hear you admit it, Scarlett, even though he won’t, for my own sanity.’
And before I can answer, she carries on.
‘I’ve stayed close to get my own evidence, tried to make myself such a good friend that you would confess and spill, like Cora does, about the man you were seeing. I knew you wouldn’t realise there was any link to me. But you’re cagier. Elusive.’
She pauses.
‘Even when I get you paralytic.’
I picture her, topping up my drink even when she isn’t having one herself. Think of times when I’ve felt drunker than I should from what I think I’ve been ordering. Dark. I shudder.
‘Okay, okay,’ I say, hand up in defence. ‘Okay. There’s someone local who Robert is sleeping with by the sounds of what you say, with the evidence you’ve found. But it’s not me! I slept with Mitch – Robert – once, a long time ago when I was drunk and stupid. That’s it. Never again.’
She looks at me with venom. She doesn’t believe me.
‘It’s too big a coincidence, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘You, moving round here. The local receipts. What happened between you all those years ago. The way he defended you. He meets up with you, then leaves me. And look at me; look at you. Once I realised you had been in his bed, I couldn’t stop comparing. Beautiful, tall you. They’re normally in their twenties, the women he sleeps with, but you – he’d make an exception, I’d imagine.’
She touches her nose; rolls on.
‘It was this one night when I cracked. I was exhausted from getting up in the night with Seth. Robert was out again. He had left his iPad unlocked and I searched and found all kinds.
‘Messages to women, pictures. Videos. I was there for hours. And eventually, I got to someone who looked familiar.’
She looks down at me.
Her eyes, these new, dark ones, drill holes in mine.
‘To someone who I thought was my friend.’
She did this to me. Not a man, not an unknown. But a woman I trusted.
I think of every second of pain I’ve experienced through this: talking to my dad, watching my marriage unravel, seeing Poppy cry as we walked out of yet another baby group because I couldn’t breathe. Felicity’s face, my colleagues, the gross remarks on my Instagram, my body vibrating with fear at those messages. Jonathan the lawyer and Ed on either side of me as I clutched at my high neckline. Aunt Denise with her hand on my arm. Shame, shame, shame.
‘So what?’ I say. ‘You decided to take some sort of revenge?’
She nods, in a daze, pacing again.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Revenge.’
She looks up.
‘Starting off with the video.’
My heart pounds.
‘And then?’ I ask.
‘Funny you should ask,’ she says, sitting down and leaning back again on my fancy armchair.
And I steel myself, as much as a person who is falling apart can.
40
Scarlett
28 July
‘Have you caught up with Poppy lately?’ asks Emma, pointedly.
I think of my phone, in the kitchen. How long have we been here? An hour, maybe, or twelve.
I go cold.
‘Not since yesterday.’
Do not mention Poppy.
She laughs.
‘I’ve got to confess, that might have a tiny something to do with me,’ she says. ‘Whoops. Ed kind of thinks you’re an unfit mum.’
My head flicks up. She ploughs on.
‘You probably know about the messages I sent to Ed a while ago,’ she says, reclining on my armchair. ‘I wanted him to be on the lookout too. I thought if he confronted you about your cheating, you might know you were being watched. Stop sleeping with Robert.’
Is there any point arguing with her? This is the narrative she has decided on. I shake my head, sadly. No, no.
‘Did he tell you there were more messages, this week?’ she asks.
A shiver runs through me.
My phone is in the other room. I can’t reach my husband to correct whatever these messages say. I can’t reach my husband to help me.
Although who would Ed believe anyway?
An anonymous stranger in a message or me, his wife? The answer brings tears to my eyes.
‘To let him know about the affair you’re having with the guy from the coffee shop,’ she says, casually.
My heart starts to race. Because is there anything harder to refute than a lie that is based in truth? I think of the hangover I had
