Page 23 of Mad About You

‘I decided to put them off until I felt ready to discuss it. That’s my right with my family, isn’t it? Or did I loseallrights here?’

Harriet stiffened at the evident nastiness in his tone, felt an old familiar fear. She forced herself to mimic confidence.

‘It’s not your right to lie about me, no, nor not to warn me. I’m fielding messages about a wedding that isn’t happening from your mum? What the hell am I supposed to say?’

‘Ignore her. Fob her off. You’ve managed it well enough when it suited you.’

Jon took a large swig of wine.

‘What the fuck is that meant to mean?!’

Jon ignored her.

‘You’re acting as if I wasn’t allowed to make a choice here?’Harriet continued. She was taken aback at how unreasonable he was being. Reason was one of the keynote Jon qualities.

‘Oh, you had one. You made it. The bad news is that I get choices, too.’

Harriet put a palm to her forehead in frustration. ‘Can you stop enigmatically pronouncing like some sort of Obi-Wan of scorned men and actually discuss this like a human being? It’s not OK to put me in a position where I have to lie, is it? I presume you don’t want me to reply: “Sorry Jackie, has he not said we’ve split up”?’ Harriet waved her phone by way of illustration, but also as a threat.

‘I’m seeing them next week at their barbecue, I’ll tell them then,’ Jon said sullenly, and Harriet sensed her implied threat had done the job. ‘Just ignore it.’

Urgh. The Barracloughs’ annual barbecue at their sprawling manor in Ilkley, she’d forgotten about that calendar fixture. Jackie made jugs of Pimm’s and Martin Senior manned a top-of-the-range outdoor oven called Broil King. One time Harriet had timidly asked for a semi-raw sausage to get another few minutes’ cooking, and Martin Senior acted as if she’d ridiculed his exposed manhood. ‘Nonsense, that’s the correct texture!’ he said, inspecting its Barbie-pink innards. ‘They’re not fairground-quality bangers, you know,’ he added, to make it clear Harriet was too common to understand an artisanal meat product.

Never having to suffer his parents again was a joyous bonus of leaving Jon, no doubt about it.

Yet Harriet was blindsided by the oddness of Jon’s reluctance to tell them. What on earth was he doing?

‘What did you tell them to explain why we’d left so early? I thought Barty knew anyway?’

‘I told them you had a stomach flu and we were only joshing with Barty. Felt good to undermine the little turd, to be honest. I’m damned if he’s going to be town crier of my private business.’

So much for Barty being entitled to a grotty phase.

Jon must’ve gone really all out with the ingratiating bluster to allay their suspicions, after Barty dropped his exclusive bombshell and the happily engaged couple were nowhere to be seen.

“’Stomach flu” the morning after a boozy night is only going to be interpreted as “hanging out of her arse”, isn’t it?’ Harriet said, frowning.

‘No, I don’t think they thought that …’ Jon said vaguely, which meant:I didn’t think about whether they thought that.

‘This is crazy. When you tell them the truth, they’re going to realise you made my illness up?’

‘For me to worry about, isn’t it?’

It wasn’t. As Harriet climbed the stairs, having concluded she’d get no sense out of Jon, she felt the mediocre disgrace of it smeared all over her. It was bad enough she’d ditched the beloved younger son of the Barraclough family, but when it was revealed they’d been bullshitted – and Barty had been right, the poor lamb! – the whole thing would be a scandal.

No doubt they’d take it as proof of how deeply distraught Jon was that he’d do such an out-of-character, desperate thing, and it would intensify their disgust at her.

Oh, well. Aside from receiving death stares in chancemeetings in department stores, she’d never have to face any of them again.

If there was one thing she was sure of, the Barracloughs weren’t the types to offer anybon voyage!fond farewells. By leaving Jonathan, she’d made herself a Bad Person. They were one of those families who were hard enough to marry into but would be even worse to divorce out of.

Back in the spare room, Harriet marvelled at the stupidity of Jon telling such short-termist, pointless, self-defeating lies. He’d now have the mortification of copping to them over a corn on the cob from the Broil King, probably in earshot of Ilkley’s braying high society.

When the answer dawned on her, it was as though she actually had the phantom stomach flu.

Her departure had screwed up a secret timetable.

Jon had gambled he’d have persuaded Harriet to stay by then.

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