Page 111 of Mad About You

‘I thought we were absolutely screwed when Scott clocked me,’ Nina said. ‘I waited and waited for you to come through the doors too.’

‘He’d obviously never expect a scrubber like me to be so done up. How did he think you’d got in?’

‘I said I was in the hotel anyway, saw the sign, wondered if it was him and decided to have a nosy. He must’ve known it wasn’t true but he didn’t have much time to work out what was up.’

Harriet’s phone buzzed.

Cal

WELL?! Do I need to come spring you from Elland Road police station? x

Harriet sent the link as response, snap-crackling inside at having his attention.

Well, wow …

You are a phenomenal person, Harriet Hatley. xx

She glowed.

Harriet knew she would never know the full effect on Scott Dyer, and she didn’t need to. It felt so great to take control, and there was no lust for revenge left in Harriet.

Within half an hour, she was told, he’d disappeared from all social media. Perhaps he’d move to another city and start again. Yet what they’d done would stand as permanent monument; he’d forever risk someone in his new life stumbling across that past. Hopefully it would produce a caution he’d never had before, as well as a heightened awareness among his nearest and dearest. Maybe he’d finally get some of that therapy he was so keen on for Harriet. Emerge reborn, a secular swami of a relationship counsellor. A changed and chastened man who’d been to hell and back, whose mistakes other men could learn from.

That progression, Harriet reflected, would be very Scott. He would forever be casting himself as leading man in his chosen story. She could only hope he’d write a better part.

But they changedthisstory, together. If there was a special place in hell reserved for women who didn’t help otherwomen, perhaps there were special rewards for those who did. Harriet did not feel alone anymore. They couldn’t have achieved this without each other, they couldn’t have vanquished this man, except as a team.

As Harriet said to Marianne and Nina as they toasted their success at the end of the night, turns out it wasn’t about the treasure of Scott Dyer’s takedown: it was the friendships they made along the way.

53

‘You know when you say something so stupid that afterwards, you get an actual body-cringe remembering it? Like,’ Cal mimed one eye opening wide as a memory occurred, and his body going rigid in response, while sat next to Harriet on the sofa.

‘Yes?’ Harriet said, tucking her legs underneath herself. It was one week since the exploded wedding, and one day until she moved out to her next digs in Chapel Allerton. For a send-off, Cal had suggested an evening in, sensitively pairing wine and crisps. Harriet was grateful for them when she got back at nine from a hip wedding at Duke Studios.

‘When you said you’d read your mum’s letter, I said, “Do you want some toast?”’ Cal put a palm over his eyes. ‘Do you want some TOAST. I amsunburnedwith shame.’

‘Hahahahaha! I didn’t even remember. It was OK.’

‘I couldn’t think of something that would meet the moment, as it were. Instead, I went to the next obvious place. Oven muffins.’

‘Could’ve at least offered me a Breville toastie.’

Cal looked at her with what looked like acute fondness.

‘We’re going to stay in touch, right?’ Cal said, picking up his glass of red. ‘This isn’tgoodbye-goodbye?’

Harriet guessed this was coming. She’d already admitted to herself that she had a crush. She knew if she stayed around Cal any longer, it’d be more serious than a crush. It’d go from a crush to a mess. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

It was a bittersweet achievement to be the prescient one for a change. The party who could see the oncoming traffic accident, and take the slip road.

After Scott, and Jon, she wasn’t going to break her own heart by falling for the unattainable popular boy, for the hat trick. Harriet was going to assume control instead. They could meet up, but she already knew how it would go. His friends, bar Sam, would be merely courteous, while not quite knowing why she was there. (‘Your ex lodger?’As if she was attending on a scholarship.)

They’d go to the sort of place that micro-planed truffles, offered low-intervention wines and served radishes with their leaves on, to be dragged through things. (‘It’s calledbagna cauda, with crudités!’ Lorna said of a starter dish to a doubtful Roxy, once. ‘It looks like my mum’s old WeightWatchers tea, without the rolled-up slice of ham.’)

Harriet would make half-hearted attempts to befriend the aloof beauty in the Vampire’s Wife dress on Cal’s arm, who’d wonder exactly how well Harriet knew her boyfriend.

Cal would be anxious she wasn’t enjoying herself, that the flatmate badinage he remembered with nostalgia, wasn’t appearing on cue. He’d end up feeling guiltily baffled, making empty promises of more meet-ups.

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