Page 12 of Between Us

1. Their origins story showed Joe could be ruthlessly decisive, and a year of near intimacy-free purgatory wasn’t that, and 2. He was talking about their getting a dog.

Nearly a decade on, it was as if their love was a neglected, autumn leaf-strewn swimming pool. It technically still existed, yet Joe had drained the water out, inch by inch. If you jumped into it, there was nothing there. You’d break your ankles.

Roisin had started seeing a counsellor, without telling Joe.

Do you think he’s being unfaithful?

Hah, no. He’d certainly have a huge scheduling headache if he was.

Can the relationship be fixed?

I don’t know.

Do you want to fix it?

I don’t know. I think so. I want to be how we were. But I don’t know if that’s gone for good.

Roisin kept telling herself, get this or thatout the way. Get through Dev’s Downton Abbey do, getHuntersafely launched into the world – and nurse Joe through any bad reviews. Afterwards, there’d be time for a state of the nation.

Frankly, she suspected Joe would ask for one eventually, and dignity demanded she went first.

It made sense to wait, yet Roisin knew a pointless delaying tactic when she invented one. It was the personal life equivalent of Amir querying whetherFifty Shadeswas great literature of the future.

Faking it never really worked.

‘ARE YOU DECENT???!’ Dev roared on the other side of the door.

Joe, typing, was so startled he almost sent an unfinished email, cursing Dev under his breath.

‘Decent!’ Roisin said, flinging the door open, striking a pose in her black dress.

‘Bloody hell, Sheen. If I wasn’t engaged and your boyfriend wasn’t a friend, and also just over there, near a brass fire poker.’

‘Haha! Thank you.’

‘Meredith and Gee are already on it downstairs, go join them. Anita’s taking forever, as per. Joe, we’re up. You’re in a crucial role – you’re my head of the butter chicken dept,’ Dev said. ‘I’m on parathas and raitas. Got Matt manning the bhajis station, with a side line in lassis. Mango lassis.’

‘I’d not let Matt near the lassies’ mangoes,’ Joe said.

Roisin snorted, despite herself, and Dev disappeared off, cackling. Roisin could tell Joe resented the interruption.

Joe doesn’t enjoy anything any more,Roisin thought. He didn’t enjoy her. Enjoying was happening elsewhere.

‘Do I look OK?’ she asked, smoothing the dress over her hips and holding her stomach in.

Joe glanced up from his screen. ‘Sure.’

‘Sure.And you a writer.’

‘It – looks – really – nice – you – always – look – really – nice,’ Joe said, deliberately mechanically. ‘That do?’

No, of course not,Roisin thought, but didn’t say it. She needed a fight right before this dinner like a hole in the head. One thing she knew for sure: there’d be no showdown on these premises.

‘Coming down?’

‘Just gonna finish this mail. Go on ahead.’

Are you still in love with him?

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