Page 96 of Mad About You

‘What was that about?’ Sam said, jerking his head towards the window.

‘I was having it gently broken to me that Kit is now with Sebastian,’ Cal said. He pointed at himself. ‘This is my surprised face.’

‘Haha. What did she think you were going to say to that?’

‘I have no idea. I think Kit always has to win, and in her mind, that was her winning.’

‘Chilling. Wish she had been a mozz stick. Beer would be welcome, ta.’

Cal withdrew. Kit’s car had yet to accelerate away. Cal’s phone, next to Harriet’s leg, lit up with another WhatsApp.

Kit

If you want me to accept we’re over for good, maybe you should stop sleeping with me? Just a thought

Harriet gulped. Oh wow. His love life was even more tangled than she thought? Her stomach churned and her heart rate jumped: she felt so old, and so square, for this not being a thing she even considered could be happening. But Kit was with Sebastian? Exactly how labyrinthine was this bed-hopping?

She raked back over everything Cal had said about the severing of the ties with Kit and wondered if:oh, but I totally still slide her one from time to time! That’s life!was always unspoken likelihood among the Gatsbys. Every time she thought she had the measure of Cal, he changed and moved. She had to let her idea of him go – it was partly a fantasy, yet one that had taken quite deep root.

When Cal returned, he picked his phone up, paused for a second, stabbed some sort of riposte into it and then stuffed it firmly out of sight. He squinted at Harriet as he sat down, but said nothing.

No sooner had they agreed to watch2 Fast 2 Furious, when the doorbell went again.

‘When did we get so popular?’ Cal said, sighing.

He got up to get the door and after a brief conference she couldn’t hear, called: ‘Harriet. It’s for you.’

Harriet got to her feet with a frown and as Cal passed her at the sitting-room door, she caught an unsettled look on his face. She returned his look, unable to ask, ‘Who is it?’ without being overheard.

It couldn’t be Jon, or Scott, as she instinctively knew Cal would’ve stayed by the door if so. The thought gave her a pang of adoration, which she acknowledged and forced herself to dismiss.

Outside, stood a young woman. She was probably eight stone wringing wet, which she was, even though the rain had stopped a while ago. Her delicate features were framed and anonymised by the tight hood of an elasticated khaki cagoule.

‘I’m really sorry to turn up on you like this. He checksmy phone and my Uber history, so it was a bus or nothing. I did think about calling you from a telephone box but the one nearest was full of dog piss and I don’t have a burner phone like a drug dealer. Then I thought,I don’t have your number anyway!What a twat. Sorry, I talk a lot when I’m nervous. I hope you don’t hate me, because I’ve got nowhere else to go for the next two hours. Your boyfriend seemed a bit dubious! Fair enough.’

She pulled her hood down, revealing damp blonde hair.

‘I should’ve said. It’s Marianne.’

44

Of all the VIP callers that Harriet never thought she’d have. She was as nervous as if the Pope had disembarked the bulletproof Popemobile for a Supreme Pontiff’s special tour, cutting about in his cassock.

‘Drink?’ Harriet said, holding up a box containing a bottle of champagne slightly deliriously. She’d shown Marianne into the kitchen, after putting her head round the sitting-room door and garbling a quick explanation to a nonplussed Cal and Sam. ‘If you want a proper drink, this is the only thing I’ve got, I’m afraid.’

The occasion felt momentous enough for alcohol, despite the clouds from Harriet’s last session only recently lifting, yet all she had to offer was a bottle sent to her as a thank you by a wedding couple.

‘If you don’t mind wasting it on me!’ Marianne said.

‘Not a waste at all.’

She looked so young and small, and Harriet felt maternally protective.

‘You smoke, right?’ Harriet said. ‘Shall we have this in the garden or do you want to get drier?’

‘Oh my God, yeah gasping for a fag! If that’s alright?’

She could tell that, having been uncertain of her reception, this sort of welcome was beyond Marianne’s dreams. At the gesture of offering nerve-calming nicotine, she gazed upon Harriet as if she was her fairy godmother.

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