Page 108 of Between Us

‘I wondered if I could have a quick word, in private?’

A moment passed. Roisin could barely have got more of a reaction if she’d flapped a coat open to reveal a holstered gun.

‘Er … Yeah. Upstairs,’ Beatrice said, in a quavering voice. She came out from behind the counter, laying down her tool and peeling off her gloves, and led Roisin up a short flight of very deep steps to a tiny, low-ceilinged office-cum-storeroom. It had an overflowing desk and nowhere much to sit, so Roisin stood.

‘Sorry to barge in like this. I guess you know who I am: Roisin. Until very recently, I was Joe Powell’s girlfriend. You need to know that I come in total peace. I’ve brought these as an offering.’ She held aloft her doughnuts to a bewildered Bea, as if brandishing a dog poop-scoop sack. ‘Nothing youcan say will make me upset at you. I’m only here to put my mind at rest.’

She placed the bag on her desk.

‘If you tell me to piss off, I will piss off at once. This is emphaticallynotgirl-on-girl violence. The only person I want to expose or get into trouble here is Joe. I don’t care or mind what you did. I only want to prove for my own sake that I never got the truth from Joe.’

Beatrice looked, understandably, stupefied. As Roisin had predicted, this announcement alone didn’t tip the scales into Bea reflexively unburdening about her sex life to a stranger who’d breezed into her place of work at five o’clock with sweet pastry goods (two jam and two ring).

‘OK, so. When I was twenty-three, I worked with a guy from York at Waterstone’s Deansgate. Joe, who had a girlfriend back home, here. You. He flirted.Weflirted, I should say. Only for about a month, six weeks. I’m not without guilt. It was never going to go any further, as far as I was concerned, as I knew about you. I should’ve kept a more respectful distance though.’

Roisin smiled awkwardly and drew breath. It was impossible to tell how this was going across.

‘Then one day, he came up to me and said he was ending it with you in order to ask me out. He told me afterwards you two were pretty much on the rocks at the time, you wanted different things. You didn’t want to move to Manchester. The break-up was very amicable. You wanted to stay friends, but he didn’t. I didn’t feel fully comfortableabout you being dumped so fast for me, and nor should I. But he made it easy not to think about it.’

Beatrice, albeit not having many options in the matter, was listening so intently her forehead was furrowed.

‘If that was true, and you are completely fine with how Joe represented your situation, and … possibly have other reasons for doing what I think you did at The Royal hotel a few weeks ago, then that’s that. But I have this intuition that I got told what I needed to hear when you split up. And that, perhaps, you’ve never had a true account either. That although by rights we should be enemies, we might have some common ground.’

Beatrice was perfectly silent, totally still.

‘Or alternatively, some woman has marched in here, dragged up very old news for you and mentioned hotel stays that mean nothing to you. In which case, feel free to pity me.’ Roisin smiled. ‘But I hope you don’t feel attacked. I’m just trying to put the puzzle pieces together, having shared my life with someone who was hiding half the jigsaw from me.’

‘Uhm,’ Beatrice cleared her throat.

Everything hung in the balance. Roisin thought the very fact Beatrice hadn’t said,what the hell, get out,indicated a willingness to discuss this.

‘I … I have no idea what this is about, sorry. I’ve not seen Joe in years.’

Roisin felt sadness, but not surprise. ‘Ah, OK. Absolutely fair enough. Apologies for the strangeness of my approach. Please enjoy the doughnuts, at least.’

Beatrice nodded.

Roisin smiled a hearty stoic’s smile, turned and descended carefully down the stairs, and saw herself out of the shop, avoiding acknowledging the curiosity of Beatrice’s assistant.

She closed the door behind her with a jangle, walked down the street, inhaling the early evening air in deep gulps as the adrenaline receded.

Well, thatwasthat. Did she believe her? She was unsure. Not really. That wasn’t the demeanour of someone genuinely perplexed, more cornered.

As Roisin reached the car park and blipped the key fob to open her car door, she felt a hand on her arm.

She turned to see Beatrice, slightly out of breath from having chased her, wind blowing her hair across her face.

‘Roisin. I’m sorry. When you said you’d walk away if I said I didn’t know what you were talking about, I had to know you meant it, and it wasn’t a trap. Would you have time for a glass of wine?’

67

‘I can have one if I’m driving, right?’ Roisin said, smiling at Beatrice, who, despite proposing this drink, looked stricken.

She’d taken her to a tiny nook of a hipster bar with copper surfaces, Pet Nat wine and uncomfortable folding seats, and got herself a large white, small for Roisin.

‘First of all. Oh God.’ Beatrice pressed at her eyebrows with her fingertips. She was very attractive in a delicate, unmade-up, continental sort of way. She had a small gap between her front teeth and looked like the smart and mysterious love interest in the lecture hall in an indie movie. ‘First of all, I was told you asked Joe out. You seduced him, threatened to tell me, and threw down a gauntlet. Said it was me or you. You burned every photo of us together, so he had no pictures of his early twenties. You were a force of nature and Joe got devoured by you, he said. A rampaging succubus in Agent Provocateur lingerie – no man was safe.’ Beatrice rolled her eyes.

‘Fuck off!’ Roisin said, inelegantly, mouth hanging open, then hooting with laughter so loud the barman looked up. ‘Seriously?I was the girl inThe Muppetst-shirt with major insecurities and an overdraft.’

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