Page 64 of Mad About You

Harriet remembered Sam calling Cal a hopeless/hopeful romantic. She still couldn’t quite see it, though it made more sense than it did before.

‘Did your parents make a mess?’

Cal checked his watch. ‘Another time. For tonight, pass. Did yours?’

‘Pass.’

They sat up together, backs leaning against the sofa, time starting to stretch and blur as Cal scrolled the karaoke options in indifference. They knew they should go to bed and they were too tired to move.

As they listened to a percussion-only version of ‘Dancing In The Dark’,Cal fell asleep on her shoulder, his phone dropping from his hand and rolling onto the carpet.

Harriet picked it up for him. The lock screen bore opening lines of WhatsApp messages from multiple women: Ashley, Bonnie, Mia, Frances. They mostly looked to be apologising for ‘running out’ and she would bet they were designed todiscover if Kit was back in his life. She laughed out loud. Cal twitched at the sound and opened his eyes.

‘You filthy womaniser,’ she said, handing it back. ‘It fell out of your hand. I didn’t grab it.’

Cal blinked blearily at the handset.

‘I know you won’t believe me, but my encouragement is non-existent. I’ve got no appetite for any of it,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe you, you’re right,’ Harriet said, and Cal gave her a lazy-drunk seductivewell what can I doabout thathalf smile.

Annoyingly, she totally believed him.

29

It had been nearly a fortnight since the Marianne letter handover at Estilo, and sure enough, zero blowback.What a drama llama she’d been, Harriet thought, as she allowed herself to breathe out. Her confidence that nothing was coming had grown with every day.

You know what? Scott’s fiancée Marianne probably read the first few paragraphs, saidoh, a bitter ex is it, skimmed the rest, and shoved it unceremoniously in a bin full of discarded till receipts and hanks of hair.

Anything was possible, in the off-world colonies that were the private lives of others. Maybe Harriet had been Scott’s reckoning, and he’d never dared to treat a woman that badly again – Marianne couldn’t reconcile him with the portrait of a belligerent man in his twenties. He’d mellowed beyond recognition. (Harriet knew this wasn’t true, from her merest brush with him, but rule nothing out.)

Maybe – whisper it – maybe Marianne was another Scott, who gave as bad as she got. Maybe a bottle of toner got spilt on the letter and Marianne was left forever wondering what the pale photographer with the plait thought she ought to know.

Maybe she simply thought Harriet was a malignant fantasist.

Maybe maybe maybe.

The point was, Harriet had done her duty to another woman when the universe sent her a test.

She hadn’t realised how much the potential consequences of her act had weighed on her until she approached her imaginary safe-by date, and her shoulders dropped by half an inch. Her years with Scott Dyer were ones she never revisited. Even when her mind wandered, she stopped herself.

Writing that letter was like drinking hemlock, or thrusting her hand into a crackling bonfire.

Hence Harriet was in an unexpectedly bouncy mood when the doorbell rang late morning Sunday, a week since Cal’s curtailed party. She ran down the stairs to answer it. The man of the house was in the shower, or he had been fifteen minutes ago according to the squeak and hiss of the water pipes that she’d overheard as she made coffee.

Her housemate was her friend now. She didn’t have to offset every pleasant interaction with Cal with: ‘but remember he’s a creep.’Thatre-adjustment had floored her. In the seven days since she’d learnt the truth, every day had brought small but friendly interactions, even when they were doing boring chores.

The thing about Cal Clarke was, he was fun. She’d not realised how much she had missed fun. Whenever they chatted, he made her laugh. He managed to be always upbeat without ever being unserious. She’d put her key in the lock and find herself hoping he was home.

On the other side of the door stood a middle-aged delivery man in a flat cap with a friendly face; in the crook of his arm, a spectacular bouquet of pink and white lilies.

The lusted-after and eligible Cal seemed the more obvious flower-receiver in the home, yet he said: ‘Ms Aitch Hatley?’

‘Oh! Yes.’

Harriet never expected thanks from weddings she photographed but it was always gratifying to know she’d been appreciated. The responsibility of her job was that you knew you were creating an album they’d keep forever, bar bitter separations. She only knew of one wedding she’d covered where she learned that the ex-wife had set the album ablaze at her divorce party. (‘It’s all on a memory stick but it’s nice to do something symbolic, isn’t it?’ she’d told Harriet, when she ran into her in BrewDog.)

‘You don’t own a cat, do you?’ the courier said, while she was signing the electronic delivery receipt with the plastic wand. ‘These can be fatal to cats, you know.’

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