He paused for a minute as their drinks arrived before continuing. ‘Pete told me about the affair a few months ago. I think it had been going on for a while by then. He told me that he’d decided to quit his job and move to France with her. I told him he was making a mistake, but he wouldn’t listen. The last time I saw him was at his leaving do a couple of weeks ago. He told me that he was going to tell you everything before he left so I am as shocked as you are that he didn’t.’
And there it was. The truth. She realised her hands were shaking and she wrapped them around her coffee cup to steady them.
‘Who else knew about this?’ she asked.
‘Only one other person, Carl from work,’ Dan replied. ‘There were rumours about Pete and Claire flying around the office but no one knew anything for sure. When they both left at the same time, people gossiped but Claire was a pretty private person and no one could get any information out of her.’
‘Do you know Claire’s full name? Or anything about where she lived?’
‘Her last name is Robinson. I think she lived in south London but that’s all I know.’
Claire Robinson. Not a particularly unusual name, there was no way she’d be able to find the right one on social media, she thought.
‘Are you friends with her on Facebook or anything?’
‘No, I’m sorry, I’m not. I didn’t know her well. None of us did, she wasn’t there very long and like I said, she kept herself to herself. I could find out the name of the temp agency she came from if you like, although I’m not sure if they’d tell you anything. I know HR won’t give me her details, they run the department like Fort Knox.’
‘Thanks, Dan, that would be helpful if you don’t mind. I’m not sure yet if I’ll do anything with it but it would be good to have it nevertheless. Do you know where in France they were going to?’
‘No, he didn’t give me any details. He just said it was a property that Claire’s family had owned, somewhere rural. He was going to work remotely but he said he’d come back to London regularly for meetings and to see the girls.’
‘Did he tell you where his new job was?’
‘He might have done at some point but I can’t remember. I’m sorry. It was a tech firm, I think.’
Now that she had the answers she’d been looking for, Kate realised that she didn’t want to stay any longer. There was no point prolonging the agony for them both. She drained her coffee and stood up. ‘Listen, Dan, thank you for your honesty, I really appreciate it. If you hear from him, will you let me know?’
‘Of course,’ he said, standing up to give her another hug. ‘And if you need anything at all, Kate, you or the girls, please let me know.’
‘Thanks, Dan, I will.’ She smiled sadly at him one last time and left.
Outside she checked her phone and saw a message from Nadia inviting her to lunch with the ladies. It was, quite literally, the last thing she wanted to do. They had all been lovely, the others, but she knew that they were probably talking about her behind her back and it made her feel sick. It was at times like this that you realised who your real friends were, she thought, not the ones who send sympathetic text messages and then bitch about the state of your relationship with other people over coffee, but the ones who genuinely offer to help. And, apart from Erin who had been amazing, there didn’t seem to be too many of them left anymore. When had she lost touch with all her real friends, the ones who really cared about her?
At university she had attracted friends like magnets. The girls she’d lived with during her three years in Leeds had become like sisters to her and they had stayed in touch throughout their twenties. Some were living in London like Kate and Pete, others had moved to different cities or countries, but they always made an effort to meet up regularly. She’d also made some good friends in her job, although looking back now they were good-time friends – great fun for work drinks on a Friday night or a hungover brunch the next day, but not ones to come flocking in a crisis. And when everyone hit their thirties and started having babies, things changed. Even her beloved uni girls drifted away – the non-baby ones having amazing adventures in far-flung places or working their way up the career ladder and the baby ones so absorbed in the daily challenge of parenting tiny people that they didn’t have the time to keep up with old friendships anymore.
Perhaps if she’d got more involved in the children’s school lives she’d have made more friends but Rachel did most of the school runs so she’d never really had the chance to mingle, other than with the antenatal mums who she already knew. They must all think she was a terrible snob, she thought, the mum who doesn’t work but still has a nanny. No wonder she didn’t have any bloody friends. Unless you counted Nadia and the others but she wouldn’t exactly call them close. Pete had never liked them that much but they all adored him. At Sunday lunches in the local pub or occasional dinner parties, all arranged by Nadia, they had cooed over him, enthralled by his sharp wit and easy banter. Oh, he could put the charm on when he wanted to and they’d all fallen for it.
‘Pete is SO lovely,’ Nadia had gushed to him on one of their meet-ups in the park. ‘Such a doting father. And you two are just, like, the perfect match.’
And despite
