Page 109 of Between Us

She’d pretty much expected this sort of thing, and yet it was still incredible.

‘It was what I needed to hear, of course. Some massively hot slut had stolen him, just because she could, as the song goes.Ro-sheen, Rooo-sheeen. I used to call you “Rolene”. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed …’ Beatrice said. ‘Carrying on seeing Joe, on and off, knowing he was with you – it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Today you walked in, and it was my nightmare coming true.’

‘That’s me,’ Roisin said, grinning. ‘A vision from hell.’

‘Why are you not throwing that over me?’ Bea nodded at the wine Roisin was sipping. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Because while it was wrong, you never told me any lies or made any promises to me. Joe did. I was the woman who stole your bloke, and you owed me nothing.’

‘It was still shit, Roisin. I knew you lived together. I can’t blame it all on his inventions and my trauma.’

Roisin realised she’d something powerful to offer Beatrice she’d not considered or factored in, whatsoever. Absolution.

‘Trauma?’ Roisin said, carefully.

Beatrice swiped her fringe to one side. ‘Joe and I got together in sixth form …’

Roisin sucked in breath even at this, and Beatrice noticed.

‘Oh yeah. Joe was my first everything. You didn’t know that?’

‘No. I got “post-university casual thing became comfy, both of you know it’s a starter relationship” vibe.’

‘Hah, no. We’d have been going out six years, when you met. We were seventeen.’

‘Wow.’

‘I was nervous when he moved to Manchester. I couldn’t go too, for various reasons. My floristry course was here, and I needed to save money by living with my parents for a while. I got suspicious when he wouldn’t take me on your work nights out. I only ever went on one, and I twigged much later he’d picked a time when you were away.’

Roisin nodded.

‘Then’ – she twiddled her wine glass stem – ‘he said he’d met someone, and we were over. I was absolutely in pieces. It was a side of him I’d not seen before. Merciless and brisk. Like he was restructuring his company. He never cried. No tears at all.’ Beatrice looked down at the table. ‘Or not in front of me,’ she added.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Roisin said.

Beatrice shook her head. ‘You hardly need to apologise to me! The thing is … this is no excuse. But to give you context that I’m absolutely sure you don’t have. We’d had an accident. Six weeks before Joe told me it was over. I had a termination. We thought we were far too young, and it was never in doubt that we’d decide what we did, but still. It was an ordeal when we were long-distance, and I wasn’t prepared for how I’d feel. I couldn’t believe that so soon after he was finishing with me for a girl he’d clearly been falling for, for a while. It screwed me up, wondering at the timeline between dashing back to hold my hand at the clinic, and getting off with you.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Roisin said. She’d blithely thought Joe was no longer capable of shocking her. She was wrong.

She wasn’t going to lie to herself: had Joe told her all this, and that he and Bea were still through, and he wanted her instead, they likely would’ve gotten together eventually anyway.

But seeing how he treated his ex, in these circumstances – it would’ve been instructive about him.

‘I became obsessed with you. The way you always are with yourrival, in those situations, I suppose. Read everything I could see online, ransacked Joe’s Facebook for details. I was so jealous of you, Roisin, it was like a disorder. I lost a stone and a half,’ Beatrice smiled. ‘It would’ve helped if you weren’t beautiful, but of course you bloody are.’

‘Hah. I think years at the frontline in a comp has aged me,’ Roisin said. ‘But thank you.’

Roisin felt a swell of genuine, heart-lifting female solidarity at pooling their resources like this.

‘Eventually you weren’t another woman to me, who might have your own story – you were a mythical creature. Joe came back, that first Christmas, without you. I was in a group of friends with him who went to the pub. I was shaking at seeing him. I was in such a mess, mentally, that I believed that the fact that you weren’t there signified that you and him wouldn’t last. We ended up getting drunk and doing it in the pub loo.’ Beatrice covered her eyes with a palm.

Roisin thought of Joe’s brash dismissal of the Petra at Sesso accusation, his moral outrage. All the while knowing hehaddone that, just not with Petra.

‘I thought it was a victory. I thought if he still wanted me, he’d come back to me. Those early days, I didn’t feel guilty at all. It was like warfare and I was taking back my territory or something. I was so in love with him. And very broken.’

‘Yes,’ Roisin said. ‘Except Joe wasn’t broken – he was exploiting you.’

Beatrice nodded, looking at Roisin with pure wonder. That Joe’s girlfriend would ever see it her way, was understandably not a thing she had ever anticipated.

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