Erin, reading the message over Kate’s shoulder, exclaimed: ‘Leaving do? What leaving do? Has he left his job?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate spluttered. She immediately hit reply.
What leaving do, Dan? Has he quit his job? He’s left his mobile at home, and he’s deleted his social media accounts. I don’t know what’s going on.
The speech bubble appeared again.
I’m sorry, Kate, I thought you knew. Yes, he handed in his notice a couple of months ago and he left last week. Look this is really awkward, you really need to talk to Pete. I’m sure he’ll get in contact with you. He’d want to know about Lily. Maybe try email?
He knows, Kate realised. He knows exactly what’s going on and he’s trying to protect his friend. She supposed she didn’t blame him but now she’d made contact with him, she had to find out the truth. The thought of Pete handing in his notice at work and even attending his own leaving do without telling her made her feel sick. She knew their marriage was hardly the stuff of dreams anymore but what kind of husband makes such a big decision without even discussing it with his own wife?
Erin read the message too. ‘This is an early midlife crisis,’ she said with conviction. ‘He’s quit his job, taken up with a younger woman. I’m surprised he hasn’t bought a flipping Porsche. What a cliché. You need to probe Dan, get him to spill the beans.’ Then she added as an afterthought: ‘If he’s quit his job, then how is he getting paid? Has he got a new job?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate added, feeling increasingly panicked. They had plenty of savings, thank goodness, but she was more aware than ever that she was reliant on Pete for everything. She didn’t earn a penny.
She composed a reply to Dan.
Look, I don’t want to put you in a difficult position but I really need to know what’s going on. Can we meet?
He didn’t reply for forty-five minutes. It was the longest wait of her life and she wondered if he was going to ignore her message entirely, but he was too nice a guy for that. Eventually, his response popped up.
Please email Pete, I’m sure he’ll reply. If you don’t hear back from him in a few days then of course we can meet. But I just think it’s better coming from him, not me. I’m sure he’ll be in touch, he’ll want to know how Lily is. I’m sorry but I can’t think of any other way of contacting him than by trying his personal email. His work emails are being forwarded to a colleague. Let me know when you hear from him x
That was it then. He wasn’t giving anything else away, at least not for now. It was like torture, the knowledge that someone else knew the full story about the breakdown of her marriage and she didn’t. Just as she was trying to decide what to do next, her phone pinged with a message.
Hey gorgeous! SO sorry to hear about Lily. Is she okay? Everyone is asking after her. Are you still free for a coffee this afternoon? 2pm? I can come to you? xx
Oh God, Nadia. She’d totally forgotten that she’d arranged to meet her for a coffee. Nadia’s children went to the same school as Lily and Maggie but they had first met at antenatal classes years ago when Kate was pregnant with Lily. Five women with nothing in common, brought together purely by baby bumps, while their other halves stood around awkwardly making jokes about swapping beer for baby bottles. They all lived in Muswell Hill apart from Kate and Pete who were still down the road in the somewhat less salubrious Turnpike Lane at the time. Nadia soon established herself as the unofficial leader of this new friendship group, setting up group chats and arranging pregnancy yoga sessions and lunches in the trendy cafés along the Broadway. When the babies started coming, one by one, the meet-ups were replaced by pram power walks in the park and desperately needed coffees in whatever café was most welcoming to breastfeeders. They’d lost touch with one of the couples after a few years but the other four had remained in fairly close contact.
Nadia was one of those friends who you knew wasn’t any good for your mental health but you just couldn’t shake off. She had sailed effortlessly through parenthood, always looking perfect with her glossy activewear and dark silky hair tied neatly into a ponytail as the group marched en masse around the park with their babes in prams. Of course Nadia’s baby would be sleeping peacefully, no dummy needed, while Lily wailed and wailed and Kate reddened with the shame of being unable to comfort her own child and avoided eye contact with any passers-by, convinced they were all judging her substandard mothering abilities.
Nadia was the type who always made you feel inadequate in any situation, even if she didn’t actually mean to. Of course, at the end of her maternity leave she had negotiated part-time hours with her employer and seemed to juggle her successful career and being a homemaker effortlessly. She was the one who always brought beautiful home-made cupcakes to the school bake sale and cheerfully manned a stall for the duration while Kate either sent Rachel or rushed in at the last minute, clutching armfuls of cookies she’d panic bought from Waitrose and getting the hell out of the chaotic, overcrowded hall as soon as physically possible.
Nadia wasn’t a nasty person really but she did love a good gossip and Kate realised that once she had hold of this new information, the secret would not be hidden for long. The news would travel through the school and parenting community of Muswell Hill until everyone knew about it.
Poor Kate, ditched by her husband
