Page 92 of Mad About You

Near-instant response, as she anticipated.

To what do I owe the honour, etc etc. Be great to see you.

Harriet didn’t have to ask whether Roxy would be there. She felt sure that as soon as Jon told her that Harriet was steaming over, Roxy would be out of Roundhay Towers as fast as her LK Bennett ruby suede courts with scallop detailing could carry her.

Harriet bought herself a drive-through McDonald’s en route, wolfing down McNuggets and a large fries in goblin fashion, before wiping her hands on paper napkins and checking for stray ketchup in the wing mirror. She noisily gurgle-drained the Coke and threw the bag in the bin with a bullseye shot as she drove past, feeling like a maverick detective in a TV drama who got casework results at the expense of a functional family life.

She parked up on Jon’s drive in her VW Polo with an assertive crank of the handbrake, then marched to the door and rang the bell, which came complete with Ring Video. Harriet always thought that was needlessly showy. As if Jon thought he might have the kind of demise to feature in an award-winning murder podcast, and instead recorded hours of footage of DPD drivers and next door’s cat defecating.

‘Hey, Hats! I wonder what you want to talk about,’ Jon said with faux-jollity, crackling through the intercom. He opened the door, dressed for squash and looking inordinately pleased with himself.

‘That would be you involving yourself with one of my closest friends.’

‘Oh, do you have an opinion about that? That’s a shame for you.’ Jon folded his arms. ‘Do come in.’

Harriet stepped into the hallway.

‘What’s got into you?’ she asked.

‘You. You got into me. Then you left. You made it clear you weren’t coming back. No more Mr Nice Guy, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re admitting this is about interfering in my life?’

‘Your life? I’m an adult. Roxanne is an adult.’

‘I’m not saying I can legally prevent you, Jon. But it’s a horrible way to behave, and you know it.’

Jon leant against the wall and looked her up and down. Harriet had a feeling he’d been scripting this showdown in his mind, for a while. What he’d needed was her attention, and now he had it.

‘Gav made the observation recently, all women on dating sites say they’re looking for the click, the spark, good sense of humour,personality. Yet mysteriously, there’s no dull man on £100k a year who “can’t find love”.’

Harriet frowned: ‘What’s that meant to—’

‘It got me thinking about how everyone else goes after exactly what they want, in this game. They just don’t own it. I’ve always been so low on confidence, held myself to such high standards. Why not have what I want? Your friend flirted with me, and I thought:why not?’

‘Because it’s treacherous, insulting to me, and has blown apart a friendship I’ve had for over fifteen years? Plus you’re cynically using Roxanne to injure me.’

‘Oh and no women have cynically used me, I suppose?’

‘Jesus Christ, Jon, listen to yourself! You’re going to end up on talk radio saying women are the real Taliban. If I’d left you and immediately started sleeping with Gavin,that’sequivalent. That’d give you some idea of how despicable this is.’

‘The man you DID immediately start sleeping with causes me no less anguish.’

‘I’m not sleeping with anyone! I told you, I didn’t know Cal. I’d have thought your girlfriend could confirm that, given she introduced us.’

‘Very much not the impression my mother was given.’

‘Ah yes, your mum. You handed her my address, you didn’t warn me, or ask my permission. You were perfectly happy for her to turn up and verbally lambast me.’

‘From what she said, you gave as good as you got.’

Harriet exhaled sharply at the futility of holding Jon to account. Nothing was ever his fault. If he didn’t want to see something, he simply didn’t. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Jon.

‘And are you forgetting that your pal stuck his oar in? No euphemism, though maybe it should be,’ Jon said. She could see, under the ‘Patrick Bateman of racquet sports’ routine, how angry he still was.

He was so warped by intervening events, he even looked changed: his eyes and the bones of his face were sharper and harder, the lines deeper. Or then again, perhaps he’d played tons of squash and lost weight.

‘Cal overheard her fulminating about how I’d die a spinster after breaking up with you. He was incensed on my behalf. Given how you’d behaved, you can hardly blame him for not being a fan of the Barraclough dynasty.’

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